


God's Blood

by Todeswind



Series: Endless Pantheon [4]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Lovecraftian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 13:33:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 46
Words: 172,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17305511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todeswind/pseuds/Todeswind
Summary: Godhood has not simplified the life of Harry Dresden. Between his war with the Titan Chronos, the Feminicidal God Moloch, and a cavalcade of nastiness from before the dawn of time you'd think it couldn't get any worse. Unfortunately for Harry, Mab is more than happy to shake things up.





	1. Chapter 1

This is the sequel to my previous story, God's Eye. It will not make sense if you haven't finished that one.

\-------  
Not for the first time, I woke up hoping that I would be in my Chicago apartment only to find myself lying in a bed that would have took up my old bedroom twice over covered by sheets worth more than ten years salary as a private investigator. I had been dreaming about my old life – a bad habit that I never quite seemed able to shake. It was stupid, but part of me kept expecting someone to pop up, say “april fools,” and toss me back into the comfortable familiarity of my second-hand furniture in the little apartment I shared with dog, my brother, and a oversized tomcat who deigned to allow me into his presence. I missed needing money. I missed paying bills. I missed arguing with my brother about doing the dishes and puttering about in the sub-basement lab and its cluttered chaos.

 

I missed my old life. I missed being Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I missed the time before I’d become the “Lord Warden, God of Magic and Chaos – Dre’su’den the Ha’ri.” I held up my pale hand, examining the inky black veins beneath my now porcelain skin. I knew from experience that my blood was now a shadowy substance flecked with starlight, forever altered by the ritual of ascension I’d underwent to save my life – a lesser version of the Darkhallow that had stranded me in the past.

 

The long-term effects of saving my life were still unclear, but suffice it to say that I was no longer the Wizard I had once been. I was now a “god” – whatever that meant. Note the lowercase “g.” I wasn’t going to be able to start slaying the First Born of Egypty any time soon, but I was damn sure that I could go toe to toe with any individual member of the White Council’s leadership and at least have a chance of coming out on top. But that power came at a price, and with obligations.

 

I was the “god” and sovereign of Nekheb, but that meant that I was suddenly responsible for ruling an entire Empire. Countless men and women looked to me as their ruler and protector, convinced that I was capable of doing anything I wanted. All things considered it was probably not a great choice to entrust the leadership of your intergalactic empire to a man who failed eighth grade civics.

 

Even my name was no longer my own. The hieroglyphs that now represented me felt alien, unnatural – especially the quail chick. No amount of allegory was quite enough to have me reconcile the quail chick and vulture that were now part of my written name. I barely recognized it and I’d been there when first Ul’tak had mangled the phonetics of my name into the proto-Egyptian language of the Goa’uld.

 

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, sitting up as a familiar shape wandered into the room. Amun, the former Eunuch and head of my household staff, strode in to my palatial apartment with near insufferable pride. Nearly a year in my service had only served to convince the man that he was in service of the greatest power in the universe, regardless of my repeated insistence that I neither wished to be worshipped nor deserved his prayers. I could never quite shake the sense that he was humoring my eccentricities as he served as my butler and manservant, in spite of and often ignoring my continued insistence that I’m more that capable of both dressing myself and finding food.

 

I gave up trying to convince him that I didn’t need domestics about two months in. All that my continued protests achieved was to further convince him that I very much was in need of him and his seemingly invisible army of servants. I’d had a small contingent of fairy folk cleaning my Chicago apartment who’d been less capable of seeing to my needs in secret than his armada of maids seemed to be. My clothing seemed to have been laundered and hung almost as quickly as I stripped out of them – not that Amun would have ever tolerated me dressing or undressing without his assistance. In truth, I wasn’t sure if I could actually get into or out of the complex costume of the Goa’uld Lords unassisted but that wasn’t the point.

 

I managed to draw a line in the sand when it came to the “groom of the stool.” Divine Lord Warden or not, some activities were single player events. I’m not sure if that was something that fell into the realm of “old fashioned” or “newfangled” but suffice it to say that the “groom of the stool” was given a generous pension and the position was done away with.

 

I stood up from my bed, cinching the silk belt of my sleeping clothes as I lazily sauntered over to my breakfast, fully aware that by the time I’d scarfed down my morning meal that Amun would have selected the clothing he felt was best for me to wear that day. I was reasonably certain that I’d had next to no input in what clothes I’d worn for the at least the past two months.

 

As usual, Amun’s idea of a proper breakfast was a feast fit for any three state dinners. And like always, only a handful of items turned out to be things that I found even remotely appetizing. It was the sort of thing I would previously have found to be decadent, even disgustingly wasteful – but the head of my household and I had found a balance between his need to give his god a lavish offering and my hatred of wasting food. The food that I did not eat was to be taken to the front gates of the place and distributed to the poor. It had the unintentional side effect of being interpreted as a sacrament by the priestesses, but since the only real fallout was that people thought that wasting food was a sin I hadn’t gone out of my way to discourage their interpretation. Hopefully some homeless people got a decent meal out of it. I took a plate of the things which appealed to me, a couple of meat kebabs that reminded me of beef, though I knew they were from a local reptile, and a porridge that tasted of honey and cinnamon.

 

Sitting down at the head of my table I tucked in to my meal, using folds of something vaguely like naan en lieu of a spoon to get the porridge into my mouth. The local custom of Nekheb was to eat with one’s fingers rather than a knife, fork, and spoon. I was about halfway through my meal when there was a soft rap at the door, and a caramel skinned beauty wearing tattoos and piercings, but not a damn thing else, poked her head into the room. “My Lord Warden, you look well today.”

 

My back stiffened as I was approached by Muminah, High Priestess of the Lord Warden. I was terrified of Muminah. I was afraid of all the priesthood of the Lord Warden, if I was entirely honest. Muminah was a true believer. She had been a devout worshipper of Heka before me, and had transferred that loyalty to me when I’d slain her previous master. She was willing to do anything for me, and I mean anything.

 

Heka had raised his priestesses from childhood as fodder for the system wide Genius Loci he’d created as a way to monitor and control a star system’s worth of wards and defenses. He’d spent centuries getting women to willingly sacrifice their lives after knowing his flesh, corrupting them into willing weapons. I knew at least one woman who Muminah had killed, I’d felt the sacrificed woman’s lips upon me when the dark god of magic had possessed me. I’d forbidden human sacrifice and forbade the clergy from killing except in self defense, but I lived in fear that one of the Priestesses would misinterpret something I said and start a jihad in my name.

 

Lash, the shadow of a fallen Angel, had done her best to feed the clergy of the Lord Warden a functional set of morals that would ensure my power base by taking liberties with her translation from English to Goa’uld. It had not been till after she was removed from my mind, along with the parts of my soul infected with Heka’s memories, that I would realize precisely how calculated her translations had been. The Goa’uld language was limited, but not quite as limited as she had implied. I wasn’t entirely sure if the dozens of languages I found myself able to fluently speak was a byproduct of her deal with the Metatron or a fringe benefit of ascending to godhood, but I was astonished by how completely she’d managed to twist my words to suit her purpose of establishing my power.

 

“High Priestess Muminah. To what do I owe this visit?” I replied, doing my best to keep my tone neutral. I did not want to encourage or discourage her behavior until I knew what she was actually doing. Too many offhand statements had already found their way into the salacious mix of fiction and philosophy that the clergy was cobbling together in an effort to please their new god.

 

“My Lord Warden. I have a question of faith from your flock that I do not know your will to answer.” The priestess bowed in supplication, crossing her arms over her chest.

 

That… boded poorly. Muminah never came to him with that sort of a question unless it was something soul crushing. What happened to the souls of the still born? Why do bad things happen to good people? The sorts of questions that nobody could have the answer to, not truly. I'd done me best to answer her truthfully, telling her when I didn’t have an answer and explaining that nobody ever got to know everything in life. Some questions, especially those that felt the most unfair, weren’t questions that had answers or ever would have answers. “Questions about what?”

 

“Your stories to the children.” Muminah replied.

 

“My stories to the children?” I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Chronos’ invasion of Nekheb had resulted in a number of unfortunate war orphans. A child raised in the foster system myself, I had been unwilling to abandon the children who’d been left without families as a result of my war. I’d taken in the children, doing my best to see to their needs and their education. Managing the needs of a kingdom hadn’t left me with a lot of time for foster parenting, but I had gone out of my way to tell them a story every night for the past year. I had a lifetime worth of history, movies, books, and comics to pull from and an audience for whom Luke Skywalker was an entirely new experience.

 

“The conclave of priestesses has been deliberating on it for some time.” Muminah asked. “The War of the Stars, the Spider Man, the Super Man, the King of Arthur, the Aladdin and his Genie, the Beauty and the Beast, the Davy Crockett, the Abraham Lincoln and the rest of your stories? Are they truth or allegory? We cannot give sermons on their teachings if we do not understand their truth.”

 

I blinked, nonplussed. “You’re asking me if Star Wars is real?”

 

“Yes, Lord Warden.” Replied Muminah.

 

I bit back the sarcastic response that I really wanted to give, thinking ‘not now Harry if you actually say that, you’re going to end up with a cult of Kal’el on your hands’ as I gave a more measured reply, hoping against hope that I wasn’t going to end up making things worse. “Some stories are true, some only have elements of truth in them, and some are outright lies. Even the stories I tell that are based on true events have been told and re-told so many times that they only give an impression of what happened rather than literal truth.”

 

“And the Jedi?” Muminah asked hopefully. “Were the Jedi real?”

 

I smiled. “You like them?”

 

“Yes.” The priestess replied, blushing. “I am, fond of the tale of Luke.”

 

“Yeah, Luke is pretty darn cool.” I replied grudgingly. “But, no. That story is one of the ones that has more fiction that truth.”

 

“Err, not quite boss. You’re drawing distinctions that don’t really count.” Chimed in an opinionated voice from my dresser, as a pair of orange lights flickered into view. Bob the skull was my spiritual advisor, both literally and figuratively. He was not actually a skull, but rather a spirit of intellect inhabiting the piece of enchanted bone.

 

“Between reality and fiction?” I blinked in confusion as I turned to the skull.

 

“What? You think that your universe is the only universe? Harry, come on. Creation is totally freaking huge. Room enough for you and Luke Skywalker to both putter your way around the galaxy.” He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m not a faith guy. I don’t know what happens with a lot of things. But I know a shell game when I see one.”

 

Muminah looked like a child who’d just been told that there were going to be two Christmases this year. I groaned, realizing just how much damage Bob’s correction was going to do in the long run. It had not gone unnoticed by the priestesses how Bob the Skull was essentially my primary source for any information I didn’t know offhand. If I wasn’t around and Bob said something or if Bob said something that corrected a factual error in my own speech, they had more or less decided to accept that as the gospel truth.

 

That was part of the reason that Bob was in my room in the first place. I was afraid that if I left the spirit of intellect to his own devices he’d end up re-instating the practice of sacred prostitution or establish some sort of Eyes Wide Shut style ritualistic orgy. Bob might have centuries worth of magical theory under his belt, but for someone without biological urges he somehow managed to have both the libido and emotional maturity of an entire platoon’s worth of teenage boys. Given the obligate nudity of the priestesses, leaving him unattended in their presence felt deeply unwise.

 

I switched to English to chide the skull. “Just remember that we live in this universe, ok Bob. Once interdimensional travel becomes an actual thing, then I’ll start worrying about the men with goatees. Until then ixnay on alkingtay to the iestesspray.”

 

“Really boss? Pig latin? It’s not like she speaks English.” Bob replied. “And you don’t let me have any fun. Honestly…”

 

“Shut up Bob.” I replied harshly, a shiver running up my spine.

 

“Oh come on Boss - If you’re not going to use your harem at least let somebody have some fun.” Bob replied in irritation.

 

“Shut up unless you want to let Mab know exactly where you are.” I snarled, the everpresent awareness of Traitor’s Bane feeding me the specifics of a the Winter Queen’s sudden presence in my realm. “She just entered the Throne Room and I don’t want her to hear you.”

 

“Meep!” Bob replied, eyelights dissolving as he hid in his container. I’d never quite gotten the specifics of his feud with Mab, but Bob had been forced to flee fairy in a hurry. If there was anything that got him to comply, it was the threat of an imminent visit from the Queen of Air and Darkness. I tossed a blanket over the skull and motioned for Amun to dress me. He’d removed my night clothes and put me into the regalia of a System Lord, complete with crystal foci, in less time than I used to take to put on a pair of blue-jeans.

 

I kept track of her with the monstrous Genius Loci of Nekheb, Traitor’s Bane. The spirit did not like the Queen of Winter, she was a powerful entity – powerful enough to do grievous harm to the solar system it was entrusted with protecting. It was willing to tolerate the intrusion, however, given the Queen’s state of alliance with Harry. And Harry could be reasonably certain that the Queen meant him no imminent harm. That she was able to enter the palatial stronghold of Nekheb without an invitation meant that she would be bound by the laws of hospitality, and for a Fairy Queen violating those laws was not even remotely an option.

 

That she didn’t intend to murder me in the imminent future was only a minor comfort, all things considered. Mab’s arrival could only mean a couple of things, few of them good. My best-case scenario was that she had arrived to discuss our mutual war upon the god Chronos. The Titan had only a shadow of his former magical might, but his willingness to employ outsiders and dark things from the worst parts of the Nevernever greatly complicated the process of re-taking the worlds that had once been Heka’s from their new overlord. While we had agreed upon the necessity of taking out the outsider aligned god, we’d had several major differences of opinion when it came to both allies and strategy.

 

Most recently I’d drawn the Queen’s ire by starting a war with Moloch at what had been intended to be a meeting to discuss the terms of an alliance. Moloch’s idea of how to “celebrate” the arrival of a potential ally had been biblical, as in old testament style levels of messed up. I actually had trouble even describing the things his people had done without feeling on the verge of vomiting. Call me a chauvinist if you will, but I get especially mad when someone hurts a woman.

 

And I don’t give a damn what you call me, if you’re willing to rape a woman to death before tossing her into an oven with her newborn baby girl I’m going to put whatever is left your ass in a pine fucking box. The Moloch had managed to escape with his life, but just barely. His Jaffa had not, nor had anyone else who’d willingly participated in the ritual feminicide.

 

Now I had two wars for the price of one.

 

Yay me.

 

Ul’tak, the head of my armies, had not been thrilled at the additional stress upon our already stretched out armies, but he’d been at the meeting as well. Neither he nor the Ancient Jaffa had questioned why I’d done what I’d done.

 

Mab had not been pleased, nor had she understood. The lives of individual mortals aren’t the sort of thing that the Queen of Air and Darkness troubled herself with. In her mind I’d sacrificed the long term benefit of thousands of capable troops for the short term satisfaction of “saving some chattel.” We’d had words after that. They had not been friendly.

 

So, I was understandably on edge when I walked into the throne room to find the Queen of Air and darkness standing in my court, looking through a book bound in what looked disturbingly like human flesh based off of the tattoos. She was seated upon a throne of ice she’d summoned to be slightly taller than my own, and flanked by a pair of armored trolls.

 

As I entered the room, the Fairy Queen looked up at me. Her opalescent blue lips quirked up into a smile as she saw me, her eyes twinkling with a gleeful malice that was painfully obvious. “Lord Warden. It is good to see you.”

 

“Queen Mab.” I replied, seating myself upon the throne. I was painfully aware that Muminah had followed me from my apartment, intending to add my meeting with the Queen of Winter to the volumes of scripture held by the priesthood of the Warden. “I had not expected you so soon.”

 

“So soon after you treated me with such discourtesy, you mean.” Mab tutted disappointedly. “I have killed for lesser insults. I did warn Moloch to curtail his usual honors, but I it would have been better for you to have seen the greater picture.”

 

“He was murdering children.” I ground my teeth. “Raping women. It was wrong.”

 

“And how many children do you think will die from a prolonged war? How many women will be raped as Chronos’ troops pillage your worlds?” Mab shook her head. “You are not some gumshoe in Chicago any more, Warden. You must see the bigger picture or you will sacrifice your entire kingdom in your bullheadedness.”

 

I sighed, Mab was treading back on old ground to get me mad. She wanted me to say something foolish that would allow her an upper hand when she asked for what she really wanted. I wasn’t in the mood for games, “Did you come to just have the same argument again, oh Queen of Winter or do you have a greater purpose in coming? My godmother has led me to believe that the entry to Nekheb from the Nevernever is a bit distant for anyone to consider traveling here for a social call.”

 

Mab laughed, it was a harsh and grating sound. “Warden, you have no idea. The place that lies on the other side is a land of nightmare. Your Godmother’s payment was far too little for the service she is forced to render. But you are right, I have not come here for old arguments or idle banter. I have a task for you.”

 

That got my attention.

 

When I had been a teenager I’d entered into a foolish deal with my Godmother. Yes, I have a literal fairy godmother and she is god damn terrifying. That debt had then been traded to the Queen of Winter, three favors owed before I would gain my freedom from her debt. Two had already been paid. Once I completed the third, I would be free of all obligation to the debt once owed my Godmother.

 

I would be free.

 

I tried not to look too eager as I felt on the verge of bouncing out of my seat and whooping in excitement. “What task?”

 

The Queen of Air and Darkness walked down from her throne to a wide stone table that sat between our thrones. She opened the book bound in human skin, tearing a page from it and casting it across the diorite surface of the table. Seven symbols around a world marked with a laughing skull – a gate address. Not to anywhere pleasant judging by the source material.

 

The Queen of Winter put down the book, rubbing her thumb across the spine in a way that couldn't help but be deeply unsetting considering the material it was stitched from. "You will leave this planet, with a retinue of three, and go to the address I have given you at the appointed time. You will not return to Nekheb for at least seven days."

 

"That's it – just go to a planet?" I replied, incredulous. "No impossible task? No crazy artefact you need me to recover? No mystery to investigate? You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical."

 

"And yet it is no less what I require of you, Warden." She replied, smiling broadly.

 

I shook my head. "No."

 

The Winter Queen chuckled, leaning back against the wide stone table in a way that accentuated her impossible curves. The pattern of black vines along her blouse grew and wriggled as she moved. "You think that you can deny me wizard?"

 

"That was the deal Mab. I get to pick which jobs I do for you and don't do." I shook my head. "I've done two jobs thus far. I know that whatever you've got lined up for my third must be big enough that it merits losing your hold over me. So unless you're planning on telling me why I need to be on this specific planet at that specific time – I'm out."

 

"Warden, you wound me. This is not a favor for which we bargained. This is simply friendly advice from one who has your best interests at heart." Her predatory feline gaze made me feel distinctly uneasy. I was glad that my eyes no longer betrayed emotion, my pupils would have been dilating with fear.

 

"You're not even paying me for this one?" I snorted. "Gee whiz, now I really want to go."

 

Mab's predatory grin never faltered. "You will go Warden, as the Queen of Summer has negotiated for safe passage into your kingdom. Even your godmother will not be able to stop her agents from arriving in full force."

 

"Ok, I'll bite. Why am I worried about the agents of summer coming here?" I sighed. It wasn't as though fairies showing ever meant anything good, but the Summer's agents were generally less malevolent than those of winter. I'd been enjoying relative popularity from both fairy courts, given that the legal route to fight the Goa'uld was through me and my armies.

 

"Because the Solstice is a week hence, and Queen Titania knows both that you are responsible for the death of her daughter and that to avert her daughter's death risks cataclysmic paradox." Mab replied. "As she can't avert them without risking the destruction of a quite substantial portion of history, she has elected to take her revenge upon the Goa'uld who set things in motion instead."

 

"What?" I screeched. "How!"

 

"I would have thought that part was obvious." Mab shook her head, sighing in exhaustion as though she were talking to a simpleton. "She knows that you are responsible, because I have told her that you are responsible.”

 

Well… fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

I blinked twice, thinking about what Mab had just dropped on me. Having the Queen of Summer gunning for me was terrifying, it was the sort of thing that made wise men looking for a nearby hole to crawl in and die. I was smart enough to know before I said something that a year prior would have sounded impossible to me.

 

“No. I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Mab arched a single brow.

 

“Unless you’ve forgotten, I was there last time. Heck, I’m the one who told you what to expect. And I sure as hell remember the timeline of the next couple days where the world of fairy is concerned. There is no way you told The Queen of Summer what is coming until after the Summer Knight died so that you could be sure to have as much control over the situation as possible. Even if they’re sending their heavy hitters my way, Summer can’t afford to send that much at me at once and the Summer Queen can’t afford to waste too much power on vengeance while she’s missing her knight. If the Summer Court shows that much weakness and foolishness you’d be on them in an instant. So - Summer’s heavies are going to have to go the long way round and Nekheb isn’t exactly easy to get to.” I shook my head, the idea of it seeming more and more absurd by the moment. “I’ve listened to endless rants from Lea about how much trouble it is to maintain two fortified positions in the Nevernever. And I’m not stupid, even if you negotiated passage through the Nevernever for the forces of Summer you left enough room for Lea to fulfil her obligations. Heck, even if they get through the worst parts of the Nevernever to get here, they’re walking into a fortress city made with the expressed purpose of repelling the supernatural. I don’t have all the wards working yet, but I’ve got enough that I feel confident in my ability to make sure that some supernatural nasty can’t sneak into the Palace without me knowing. And I’ve got a whole army worth of Jaffa just itching to put the hurt on any Furling who looks at me funny.”

 

I reached out and picked the page Mab had discarded upon the table. “So as far as I can tell, I am in a highly defensible position behind ancient wards, defended by a massive army, and guided by a Genius Loci that will happily aid me in crushing anyone who invades my city. Summer is stretched thin and able to only toss a token effort to kill me. I don’t get how it even remotely benefits me to strand myself on another planet and just make myself an easier target.”

 

“There are many reasons Warden. The first is that you over-estimate your ability to repel the Summer Fae. There are warriors of Summer who did not participate in the war as you described it to me, great and terrible things.” The Winter Queen’s eyes twinkled with malice. “Precisely the sort of things my opposite might throw at the one who engineered the death of her child. A week of fighting those creatures would force you to withdraw soldiers from your front lines and allow Chronos and Moloch to decimate your forces.”

 

“Force you are pledged to aid.” I retorted.

 

“How, and when I aid is very much a matter of my discretion, Lord Warden.” The Winter Queen disagreed. “And as my pledge of safe passage is only through my own territory to reach where you are, thousands of your vassals need not die needlessly in the crossfire between your armies and the forces of Summer, provided that you are not actually on Nekheb. In a week, the only viable way for them to travel here will once again be as guests of your war against Chronos. The Summer Queen cannot afford my price a second time.”

 

“Oh, I see, you’re redirecting me from a hardened fortress for humanitarian reasons.” I snorted. “Now it all makes sense.”

 

“Many of your vassals will die if you stay Warden. I do not lament their passing any more than I would for any other mortal, but they are your people and your responsibility. How you choose to fail them is, of course, your prerogative.” Mab’s smile widened. “But if those lives alone are insufficient, there is a more personal reason to comply. Because if you do not, it seems entirely likely that a son of Margaret Lefay will meet a most unfortunate fate.”

 

“Hah,” I snorted. “You don’t say.”

 

“No Warden, I am referring to the other child.” Mab might as well have stabbed me.

 

The other son of Margaret LeFay, our mother. Thomas, she was talking my half-brother. A vampire of the White Court, Thomas Raith wasn’t someone whose relation to me I publicly advertised. Neither one of us wanted it to get out and end up being used as blackmail against either of us.

 

I’d gone out of my way not to tell her that Thomas was my brother when she’d asked me about the future.

 

Somehow, she’d found out anyway.

 

Bitch.

 

I’d already been planning on doing what she told me to, I just wanted to see what information I could bleed out of her to explain what her goal actually was out of this, but this changed the stakes, and she knew it. It was stupid and selfish for me to be more worried about my brother than the citizens and soldiers of Nekheb, but he was family. Being irrational about family was kind of par the course.

 

A rush of emotions ran through me, shock at the threat she’d just made, horror at the realization that Mab knew of the connection between me and my brother, and then abject confusion at what the threat implied. “But – he is alive, I mean he keeps being alive for years more. He was still alive when – “ I paused, avoiding saying more in front of my household staff. Mab, of course, already knew, she’d spent days grilling me on the specifics of the next couple of years – milking me for every possible detail no matter how insignificant. I considered my next words carefully. “His future was already set.”

 

“I have altered his course.” The Queen of Air and darkness replied with a tone of arctic cold. “It took remarkably little effort really.”

 

“But – that’s insane.” I sputtered, my metallic voice boiling with rage as my eyes glowed like angry coals. “If he dies then you’re going to cause a paradox! You could destroy everything!”

 

“Paradox is an overrated threat, Warden. Important events in history that have happened have a tendency to continue happening. Certainly, the events that brought you here will unfold. If they still happen in a pattern that pleases you, however, is up to you.” The Queen of Air and Darkness strode around me, cooling the air by ten degrees simply by virtue of her proximity. “The Vampire is important to you, but you’ll find that few men transpire to be important to history. If he lives or dies, history will stay much the same. The life of any one man is rarely enough to turn the tide. He has saved you many times, but you are not without friends and allies. Had he not been there one of your other compatriots would have been.”

 

“That’s a hell of a gamble to make.” I replied, wanting very much to set the evil Queen of fairy on fire.

 

“Not especially.” The Fairy Queen replied. “Surely you’ve noticed that certain memories are fading and others are clear in a way that seems disconnected from the norm.”

 

“I don’t…”

 

“Don’t waste time lying warden.” Mab sighed in exasperation. “We’ve already spent more time discussing this matter than I’d care to and every instant you waste on denying truth is a moment that the child of Margaret comes closer to lasting harm.”

 

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” I had taken it for homesickness at first, the brief little bursts of insight and clear daydreams. Not often at first, but with increasing regularity I had begun to remember days that I was certain had never happened or had happened in a slightly different way from how I was equally certain was the truth of how that day had unfolded. “I’m – I’m remembering how things happened before and after I changed the timeline, aren’t I?”

 

“Warden, were you some mere Wizard you wouldn’t even have that much insight. You would just accept the reality you caused to be the only one to have ever happened.” Her matter of fact tone was clinical, as though she were talking about a fond hobby rather than re-writing the fabric of reality. “Even your memory of events that once that might have been will be only fleeting. If he dies, you might never even discover his existence.”

 

“But if I go then he’ll live.” I replied, not bothering to keep the venom from my tone.

 

“If you go, you’ll have a chance to keep him alive.” Mab touched the page in my hands, motes of blue light dancing down from her finger to the gate symbols on the page. “What you do with that chance is no business of mine. I lose nothing of great consequence if the vampire dies and no matter how angry you become once he is slain, you will soon forget and return to being a valuable ally.”

 

I shook with fury, the page crumpling in my fist as I tightened it. My knuckles popped loudly as I snarled. “You had no right to bring him in to this.”

 

“I had every right.” She replied. “I am Mab. Now you may gamble the child of Margaret’s wellbeing on the goodwill of his father or you can take my chance to save him. I leave the choice to you.”

 

Check and mate. By the time I’d been sent back in time the White Court had been taken over by Thomas’ half-sister Lara, leading to a “kinder, gentler” White Court. But back before I’d known who he was, house Raith’s leadership hadn’t been quite so cuddly. Mab knew that there was no way that I would leave Thomas to the “mercy” of the King of the White Court. The man was a monster, plain and simple. A monster my mother had cursed to be unable to feed and replenish some of his nastier mojo, but still a monster. That whole thing about a “kiss of death” that the Mafia ripped off? That was based off of him.

 

“Fine.” I snarled, my lip curling. “I’ll go.”

 

“The Tau’ri will meet you at the address I have provided.” Mab replied.

 

My anger evaporated back into confusion. “The Tau’ri… you mean humans from Earth? Soldiers?”

 

“They bore the uniforms of Earth’s warriors, yes.” Mab replied. “Lest you forget, I too have a war to wage with Summer. I cannot convey you to the First World myself else I risk bringing Summer’s vengeance upon me and mine for the harm you will bring its Lady. And the Asgard are reluctant to allow anyone to arrive through the void.”

 

“So, you arranged for me to go there through means that are outside of your control.” I nodded, “In a way that doesn’t cause direct conflict with the Summer Court or the Norse pantheon.”

 

“I have,” Mab replied icily, sounding as though she were irritated by my lack of gratitude. A tone that managed to simultaneously be infuriating and patronizing. “They know to expect you. If you go to this address you will be transported to the First World by them with appropriate discretion.”

 

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “They know what is going on?”

 

“Of course not. They have a scrap of the image that they’ve woven into an entire tapestry of ignorance.” Mab snorted. “But we make do with what we have, not what we might wish.”

 

I nodded. “That’s why you wanted me to take such a small retinue. If I showed up with an army the military would think I was invading.”

 

“Precisely.” Mab smiled. “Four individuals are a much more manageable threat. We wouldn’t want to scare them away or have them decide to shoot to kill, would we?”

 

“No,” I agreed. “I prefer not to be shot with lethal intent.”

 

“Good.” Mab snapped her fingers, opening portal into the dark landscape of the Nevernever. As always she opened a way in front of the massive army she kept on the other side, a retinue of tens of thousands of Fairy warriors. “Happy hunting, Warden.”

 

I waited for Traitor’s bane to let me know that my fairy visitors were really, truly gone before I let loose the series of epithets I’d been holding back. I punched the stone table’s surface, boring a hole in the diorite with my closed fist. My brother was in danger, likely lethal danger, and it was all my fault.

 

Of freaking course. I’d known that Mab was going to twist the knowledge that I’d given her – pervert it to her own use and benefit, but I’d made the error of assuming that she was as averse to paradox as I was. Hell, I’d made the arrogant assumption that she would actually treat paradox as a threat. But she was Mab and she would always be Mab – the trials and tribulations of individual mortal concerns were beneath her interest if not her notice. She would kill everyone I knew and loved in an instant if she believed it were in her best interest to do so.

 

And I could already see about a dozen benefits to forcing me from my stronghold. Even if I didn’t manage to get back to Earth, where Titania’s retainers would most definitely be able to reach me with ease, I could easily drag them across the galaxy. Some of Summers strongest hit men, and I could drag them halfway across creation for a week. Assuming, of course, that I survived that long. Some of the baddest of asses hung their hats in the court of Summer. Just because they were generally accepted to be the nicer of the two courts didn’t mean that they were any less deadly.

 

Leading Thomas to almost certainly lethal danger? That was barely an afterthought as far as Mab’s plans went, just a final enticement to ensure that I danced to her tune. And while I was certain that neither distracting Summer nor saving my brother were Mab’s actual goals, I was equally certain that if I stayed I would forever blame myself for the loss of innocent lives in my Kingdom.

 

I had only recently reconciled myself to thinking of the Theocratic Monarchy of Nekheb as my own, though I’d been living there for the better part of a year. Call me crazy, gumshoe to “divine lord of the galaxy” wasn’t a seamless transition. I was already having nightmares about the men I sent into combat, men who I knew were going to die by the hundreds. Hells Bells, I wasn’t qualified to actually run a war. But my Generals still came to me when they were at an impasse, turning to their “god” for guidance when all other logic had escaped them. What was I going to be able to tell them that their decades of experience waging war couldn’t provide? Who was I to choose who lived and died? Ul’tak and the other Jaffa were better at the strategy of war than I could ever hope to be.

 

But standing around and just being a rubber stamp for my First Prime’s orders? Nah, that wasn’t going to happen.

 

So, I’d done the only thing that I could do to still be able to sleep at night. I made sure to fight alongside them. I found out wherever the fighting was going to be bloodiest, where the battle was sure to be near hopeless, and I made sure to go there and fight with my Jaffa warriors. It didn’t mean that we won every time, or even half the time but I knew that some of the men fighting in my name would make it back alive. Even in the most hopeless fights, some of them would make it back to their families.

 

It doesn’t take many battles watching young men die in your name for you to claim their cause as your own. I was a mediocre god at best, but I would be damned if I was going to make these people suffer more in my name than was absolutely necessary. I would commit men against evils like Moloch or Chronos, but against the forces of Summer? Not so much.

 

Sure, they were trying to kill me because they thought I was an evil monster who wanted to kill their queen. Generally speaking though, the forces of Summer were decent people and good neighbors. They were the sort of beings that Walt Disney would likely have cast as protagonists in his animated films, powerful and dangerous but ultimately good. It wasn’t sure if my Jaffa would end up hurting them more or they would do more harm to my Jaffa, but either way I lost in the long run.

 

“My Lord, do you truly mean to comply with the Demon Queen’s wishes?” Muminah spoke, her voice a somber whisper. “Do you mean to travel into darkness with only three companions?”

 

“I have to.” I replied, choosing a tactical application of truth rather than an outright lie. “I owe Margaret LeFay my life. If her child is in danger, I must save him by any means necessary.”

 

“Yes my Lord Warden.” Muminah bowed her head in supplication. “My Lord, if I may be so bold as to make a request?”

 

“You may.” I sighed, wiping the diorite dust from my fist. “I don’t promise to comply with it, but you may.”

 

“I wish to come with you.” Muminah interjected.

 

“Muminah…. I, I don’t think that’s wise.” I replied. “I am going to be heading into danger, blind to what is going to happen next.”

 

“Do you think me defenseless?” Muminah crossed her arms, the enchantments in her tattoos shimmering nearly imperceptibly as she did so.

 

“No, I conceded. I do not.” The priestesses of Heka, now “Ha’ri” were a blend of Jackie Chan, the secret service, and a portable anti-monster warding tattoos. Muminah might have been five foot nothing and change, including the chestnut hair she’d finally allowed to grow to shoulder length, but I’d seen her take down full grown Jaffa warriors on the practice mats. I doubted the practicality of combining so many piercings with a clergy who practiced a variant on Greco-roman wrestling mixed with Krav Maga as part of their sacrament, but the result was a bunch of fairly badass women.

 

“Then I wish to be part of this, my Lord.” Muminah insisted. “You have spoken that man is judged through his right and righteous action, but am I as a woman merely to stand on the sidelines without the opportunity to prove myself? You have taken men and Furlings into battle countless times, but mortal women have a way of being put on a pedestal and secreted away to safety as though we were made of glass. I am made of faith and fire, my Lord, and I would not abandon you in your need.”

 

“Geeze tell me what you really think.” I sighed.

 

“I have overstepped.” Muminah bowed her head in supplication.

 

“No… no. You’re fine.” I acquiesced. “And honestly I probably need someone with your talents to come anyway.” All but the strongest fairy enchantments and veils fell apart within a few yards of the priestesses’ tattoo wards. I probably couldn’t afford to not have her with me under the circumstances.

 

“And the other two? Ul’tak? The Ancient One?” Muminah queried. “The Bob?”

 

I shook my head. “No, the Jaffa need to stay and direct the war and Bob… Bob needs to be here rather than on the first world.”

 

This was going to be a dangerous journey. If I died I couldn’t risk letting Bob fall into the wrong hands, now with all the knowledge he’d gained since we’d come to Nekheb. Not to mention the danger of letting my brother see Bob. If he recognized Bob later on when he and I started living together, it could mean a whole world of paradoxical potential. No, Bob was best left on my throne, behind a shield and under orders not to drop it for anyone but me. He was better at running the palace’s magical defenses than I was anyway. With any luck, he’d delay the forces of Summer from realizing they were on the wrong planet till after I’d left.

 

“Then who my Lord Warden?” The high priestess tilted her head in curiosity.

 

I smiled, imagining Colonel O’Neill’s reaction when we reached Stargate Command. Just because I wasn’t showing up with an army, didn’t mean I couldn’t put on a show. “I know a guy who knows a guy.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Go fuck yourself.” Replied the reptilian goddess as she flung her goblet to the throne room floor in disgust, casting blood red wine across the stone surface. The crimson liquid sizzled against the base of my throne, evaporating into steam against the glowing orange shield separating Bob the skull from the rest of the world. He looked up from his work briefly, eye lights flitting from me to the Egyptian Daemon Goddess and back, before going back to his work.

 

He was smart enough not to get involved in an argument with the furious goddess.

 

At least one of us was.

 

It was the answer I’d pretty much expected, but it was not the answer I’d hoped for.

 

“Ammit, Mab is the one who arranged for this meeting. She might be dealing me on the level but I have to assume that the Tau’ri are setting a trap for me.” I grunted as my waist cinched unexpectedly. Amun was checking the clasps on my battle armor, fiddling with some part on my back that wasn’t easily in line of sight. He handed me a thick armored gauntlet.

 

Ammit scowled as I pulled the thick black gauntlet over my hand, willing the crystalline foci in my palm to glow – illuminating the dark metal and stone of my segmented breastplate. I’d made a series of small changes to the armor that had once been Heka’s over the past year, shaping it to better fit my own style under Bob’s guidance. I hadn’t dared make any significant changes to its structure. Neither Bob nor I had a working knowledge that we felt capable of altering the underlying structure of wards. I was pretty sure they operated on a similar principle to my old duster, but the only way I could put my working theory into practice would require that I start with an entirely new set of armor.

 

That would require Naquadah, the ferrous magically charged metal used as the core of all Goa’uld machinery and magic. And not just Naquadah, a refined grade of it several orders of magnitude more than the weapon’s grade material that could power one of the Goa’uld pyramid ships.

 

So, I could either continue to power my fleet of ships, or I could make a fancy new shirt that may or may not work at all. I wanted to look a bit less hellish to soften the whole “former lackey of Space Satan” reputation I had, but I wasn’t fashion conscious enough to sacrifice the war effort against Chronos to achieve it. That might be enough to break the stalemate in Chronos’ favor.

 

I hadn’t realized just how far outside of my weight class I had been punching when I started this war. At the height of his power Heka owned a handful of star systems and a meagre fleet of ships. Think the former USSR going toe to toe with Delaware – not a fight you’re expecting Delaware to win on its own. Chronos was a major player, and apparently didn’t take failure particularly well. The aid of the Fairy Kingdoms had been sufficient to limit Chronos’ capacity for success, but every decision I made in this war had the potential to kill millions. So no fancy new armor for sullen wizards.

 

That didn’t mean I didn’t get any new toys though. A number of silver rings and jeweled bangles hung from my armor, ensorcelled with protections and tricks that would prove useful. None of them were even half as murderous as Ammit’s glare.

 

“Not if you were planning on giving me your entire kingdom for doing so.” Ammit shuddered. “There are too many things on that hell world with long memories and appetites too horrible to speak.”

 

“You're being very dramatic for someone constantly asking me permission to eat people.” I replied.

 

“You’re the one always telling me that we’re ‘better than that’ or ‘that you’ll kill me for suggesting that again.’ Don’t blame me if your squeamishness is contagious Warden.” Ammit shook her head furiously, crossing her talon tipped fingers across the thick jeweled necklace on her chest. It was an elaborate configuration of golden links and small stones sized specifically for her reptilian bulk, a gift I’d provided her to protect her from fairy illusions following a particularly uncomfortable day when Mab had sent Cat Sith as a messenger on her behalf.

 

She’d spent the next two days jumping at shadows, unwilling to leave the protection of my throne room till I’d finally made the amulet for her out of pity. Sure, she was a giant cannibalistic crocodile, but she was still a girl. I was reasonably certain that she hadn’t removed it since.

 

“We don’t have enough people in my kingdom to support a practice of eating people. War has a way of preventing the surplus population.” I repeated the old argument for what had to be the millionth time. ‘It’s wrong’ having proven insufficient motivation to prevent the goddess from reverting to old habits, I’d been forced to provide a logical reason to deter her from doing something that would require me to provide an extremely permanent correction for her behavior. I liked Ammit as much as I liked any of the Goa’uld, but I wasn’t going to let her prey upon the mortals. “I don’t need you to like it, just accept the reality of it.”

 

Ammit growled, a metallic basso that sounded like what might come out of an amp after someone rubbed an electric guitar wire with a razor blade. The discordant frustration might have cowed most men, but I’d spent most of the last year interacting with the goddess. I would not be so easily dissuaded. “Ammit, you’ve been to the First World. You know how dangerous it is. If I bring a bunch of worshipers and sycophants they’re just going to assume that I’m going to be able to just magic away all the danger. That sort of arrogance is going to get me killed.”

 

Ammit looked pointedly to the priestess who, other than a long quarterstaff and a leather backpack, was clad only in the hieroglyphic wards of devotion. “Clearly you’ve gone out of your way to avoid that.”

 

“The Priestesses tattoos are functional wards.” I replied dismissively. “We’d be dumb not to bring her, she increases our chance of survival in the long-term.”

 

“Oh, now you start worrying about your long-term survival.” Ammit griped, pinching the bridge of her nose in gesture no other Unas had demonstrated in my presence. I wasn’t quite sure if it was an affectation she’d picked up to seem more empathetic to humans or a byproduct of spending so much time with the Jaffa, but One Eye and the other Unas tribes since settled in the desert caves around Nekheb found her body language to be odd. “You start adopting a practical attitude towards your own longevity just in time to drag me to my inevitable demise.”

 

“If it makes you feel any better I plan on bringing Enlil as well.” I supplied, scratching at the back of my head.

 

“Bringing me where?” Queried the smarmy voice of the Babylonian god as he entered the throne room. He was haler than he’d been when first he came to Nekheb. The Mesopotamian deity, like Ammit, had chosen to remain on Nekheb and serve as my underlings. The former head of a Pantheon, Enlil had actually proved himself a surprisingly efficient functionary when it came to facilitate the day to day operations of a galactic empire. The man was pathologically opposed to chaos, and had tossed himself into the minutiae of reconstructing the infrastructure of Nekheb. Judging by the white clay drying on the man’s sandals, he had just returned from one of his most recent efforts to oversee the installation of decent plumbing into the slums.

 

“The Warden wants us to accomplany him on his latest bid for public suicide.” Ammit replied.

 

“Oh, wonderful.” Enlil replied in dry exasperation. “How lovely. It’s been nearly a year since you’ve tried to kill us all, I guess we’re overdue. What fresh hell has he decided needs to be visited this time? I don’t think Lord Yu wants us dead yet but I’m sure if we invade the right things that can be corrected.”

 

“The first world.” Ammit replied in spiteful monotone.

 

“Absolutely not.” Enlil replied so immediately and forcefully that there was a brief moment of shock on his face as his mind caught up to his lips to let him know that he’d actually said that aloud. “I mean, I… must question the…. You know what? No – I’m not dancing around this. Warden, are you completely out of your mind? What could possibly be worth this?”

 

“Someone needs my help.” I replied. “Someone I owe the help to.”

 

Ammit’s eyes narrowed briefly in recognition. “The Queen?”

 

“No, someone I owe more than her.” I replied honestly. “If I do not save him, it will result in a dire consequence.”

 

Which was technically true, Mab seemed to be under the impression that she’d still end up with a supercharged Wizard in her corner but I was somewhat more skeptical that everything was going to end up turning up Milhouse in the end. I hadn’t lied to Mab precisely, but I’d gone out of my way not to mention my half-brother in the questions she’d asked me. I hadn’t been able to avoid him entirely, which is how she’d probably known to research him, but I might have glossed over just how many times he’d saved my life. Even if he wasn’t my brother, I’d probably need to save him out of sheer self-preservation.

 

“You owe someone more than what you owe the Queen of Air and Darkness.” Enlil let lose a string of profanities as he ground his teeth together. “Whose armies you are currently using to fight your war?”

 

“I owe the sum of my power to Margaret LeFay,” I replied. “So, it is right and proper that I should save her son when given the chance.”

 

“You have fun with that.” Ammit snorted. “If I want to commit suicide while you’re gone I’ll order a squad of Jaffa to shoot me. It’s less painful and doesn’t require quite as much walking.”

 

“There is the matter of debt.” I cut across Ammit’s tirade. “And what you owe me. Or did you forget our last trip to the First World?”

 

Both Ammit and Enlil stopped talking at that. A year prior we had been taken prisoner by the Asgard Thor and forced into surrender to the United States Air Force. I’d been forced to give them a space ship in exchange for safe passage back to Nekheb, which suited me just fine. Theoretically speaking Wizards were supposed to be non-partisan when it came to issues of country and politics – it kept people with centuries old ideas about things like “slavery” or “what people got to eat in your restaurant” from using summoned demons to keep up the status quo. But try as I might, I was a capital “A” American and giving “big honking space guns” to the old US of A was ok in my book.

 

While Thor had been checking the ship for traps I might have, sort have, totally outright stated that all the Goa’uld who’d used my magic to help me escape “owed me” the sort of very real magical debt that Mab had over me. The Fae could buy and sell obligation the way some people sold stock. Given how little every one of them seemed to understand the Fae, and how I was on speaking terms with the Queen of Air and freaking Darkness – they’d accepted my bluff at face value.

 

If it even was a bluff any more – Hell's Bells, I probably could actually buy and sell debt given my new status. Not that I would, Ammit was a bloodthirsty lunatic and Enlil was a scheming little maggot, but nobody deserved to have Mab holding their leash.

 

I certainly wasn’t going to allow either one of them to realize that, however. Ammit and Enlil were dangerous in their own right, conniving and vicious gods who’d willingly been part of Sokar’s pantheon. I trusted them to operate within the limits I’d given them, provided that I was able to remain and supervise their actions. In my absence, however, I feared that one or both of them would try to secure some measure of power. Hell, if I died, I would essentially be handing the two of them Nekheb on a silver platter. The magical runes ensuring my Jaffa’s total loyalty were entirely contingent on my continued survival. When I eventually passed on, the bindings would die with me and anyone with a remote understanding of a Sanctum Invocation would be able to topple everything I’d helped build.

 

Leaving them behind without supervision? Not an option.

 

“You owe me. Both of you.” I infused the words with an effort of will, making the smoldering orange glow that filled the star flecked black pits of my eye sockets burn with even more light than usual. “So either help me or I will sell your debt to Mab and I will pay her to make you help me.”

 

Ammit snarled in a tone that reflected Enlil’s new string of ancient Babylonian profanity, before she raked her claws against the table with her left hand. Her talons slashed deep into the green-black stone, sending a shower of sparks across the table. “You bastard. You absolute and utter bastard.”

 

“Yeah, here’s the thing. We don’t really have a lot of time to discuss this.” I replied, deciding to put the nail in the coffin on this deal. “The Summer Queen dispatched a strike force to come to Nekheb and kill me and I don’t know quite how much time we’re going to have before she gets here.”

 

I gestured with my thumb to Bob on the throne. “I’ve got someone running interference to at least slow down the incoming storm, but Summer’s heavy hitters are incoming ASAP. She apparently negotiated safe passage to here with Winter, but I’m sure you’d be able to kill at least a couple of them before they realized that I’m not on the planet. It’s not like you have enemies in Summer’s inner circle of assassins.”

 

I didn’t even realize that reptiles could go pale. Ammit clenched and unclenched her taloned fists several times, visibly expending effort not to go into another bout of rage.

 

Enlil, however, just flopped down into one of the chairs around the stone table. His face was a mix of horror and fascination as he spoke. “You actually did it, didn’t you? That madness you’ve been spouting about killing the Summer Lady and knowing the future. You sent someone to kill the Summer Lady so that it would be true? I just thought that was some ridiculous bravado that the two of you cooked up to make an alliance you’d already agreed upon seem plausible.”

 

“I will be responsible for her death. Yes.” I replied, there was no need to belabor the fact. “Mab has informed her. She will be coming to take her vengeance upon me and mine. It would be prudent to be elsewhere.”

 

“Only you, Warden.” Ammit ran a claw over her necklace. “Only you could need to go to the First World in search of safety.”

 

She shook her head in disgust. “Blood of Apep, very well. We’re coming.”

 

“We’re what?” Enlil groaned, pulling at the thickly braided beard he was sporting. He worriedly ran his fingers about the blue, turquoise beads someone had woven into the braids. His voice was disgusted, but I knew the man well enough to realize there was no real fight in it.

 

“We’re coming. The last time the Warden started spouting something half this insane we ended up mutilating the King of Dragons and using the Asgard as a chauffeur. His brand of crazy has worked for me this far, I might as well see where it leads this time.” She rolled her neck, wetly cracking the thick saurian vertebrae as she cocked from side to side. “What’s the plan?”

 

That was a more nebulous problem. Beyond a gate address and the vague goal of not dying horrifically, I honestly had no idea how to go about even finding my brother – let alone saving him. Assuming that the Tau’ri didn’t kill us on sight, I wasn’t entirely certain what Thomas had been doing before he’d entered my life. I had a rough idea, given that he was a White Court Vampire, an Incubus. It was a life of intrigue and shadows, constantly acting through cat’s paws in hope of securing a more stable power base and more interesting sources from which to feed.

 

I hadn’t asked many questions about what it was like to live in the White Court. I hadn’t really wanted to know the specifics. I hadn’t wanted his past to color the image of my brother in my mild. ‘Damn it Harry,’ I thought to myself, ‘You could at least have found out what City he was living in.’ I could probably use the silver pentacle amulet around my neck to point me in the right direction, but short of circumnavigating the globe as the crow flies it wasn’t an overly practical method.

 

I could probably negotiate with the US government in exchange for them helping me track down where he was. I had more than enough resources to trade to make it worth their while. Unfortunately, there would be no way for me to accomplish that without tossing up major red flags. They would continue to monitor my brother after I left, meaning that in saving him today I might well be unleashing the mortal world upon the supernatural one. It was already going to be a risky proposition just talking them into allowing me freedom of movement. The Goa’uld had a well-deserved reputation for being a compendium of cock-weasels, “hey, can I just go searching through Chicago without anyone monitoring me,” didn’t strike me as a particularly appealing sell.

 

It would likely have the Colonel pulling his best Ammit impression.

 

And, once all was said and done, it still wouldn’t be over. I was going to have to offer Titania something valuable enough to get her to stop trying to kill me for murdering her daughter. Even if I managed to survive a week and get back to Nekheb, I would be trapped on that planet forever unless I found a way to appease the Summer Queen’s wrath. I just needed something of equal value to the life of one of the of the Immortal Queens of Fairy.

 

No pressure.

 

Sometimes being a Wizard just kind of sucks. I put on my most wizardly grin, and waggled my eyebrows. “What’s the plan? We go in, we save the target, we stay alive for a week, and when we get back, we kick Chronos’ ass up into his eyeballs.”

 

Ammit rolled her eyes in a practically Murphy-esque display of sass. “Screw it. We’ve done more with less.”


	4. Chapter 4

There was real hurt in Ul’tak’s eyes as I told my First Prime that he would not be accompanying me through the Stargate. The huge, dark-skinned man actually trembled as he asked me, “Have I wronged you my Lord Warden?”

 

“Ul’tak – no. Not at all.” I shook my head, “I’m nothing but pleased to call you my friend.”

 

The Jaffa warrior winced slightly as I used the word “friend,” as though the sheer intimacy of it were perverse. It was less than the first time I’d done it, but the man still struggled with the idea that I was going to insist upon interacting with him as an equal. He’d countered my friendship offensive with a prolonged campaign of staunchly stoic insistence upon proper protocol with his “god.” Our ongoing Cold War of manners showed no signs of abating as he replied to me in a formal reply. “Then, my most honorable Lord Warden whose might protects us all, why have you elected to take the priestess with you but not your First Prime?”

 

His significant glaze in the direction of the two Goa’uld waiting for me at the entrance to the Stargate laying bare the unspoken question “Why have you turned down my protection given that you are bringing them with you?”

 

It was a valid question, and one that deserved an answer given how the back-stabbing nature of the Goa’uld effectively guaranteed that one or both of my Goa’uld companions would soon attempt a power grab from me. “I need you here Ul’tak, guiding my armies and leading the war in my absence. I can handle Laurel and Snakey, it’s Chronos and Moloch that I’m worried about.”

 

And Titania, but who’s counting? I’d elected not to share that particular chestnut with my First Prime given that I didn’t intend to be anywhere near Nekheb, thus robbing Titania of her opportunity to do harm. I nodded, “I need to protect my kingdom.”

 

Wait – My Kingdom? When had I started thinking about it like that?

 

I was a PI from Chicago. I had bills, lots of them, and an unpaid parking ticket. People like me didn’t have Kingdoms, outside of the metaphorical type. But then I wasn’t people like me anymore, was I? I shuddered, once again uncomfortably reminded of my own inhumanness. I was Dre’Su’Den the Ha’ri, Lord Warden of Nekheb – bound to the power I’d taken in a necromantic ritual of ascension. Was I still Harry Dresden? Could I be?

 

Something of my thoughts must have shown in my posture, because my First Prime put his fist over his heart in salute and rattled off a verse of scripture to me. “Men are defined by their action, my Lord Warden. I will do what is right.”

 

“I – I trust you to do what is right Ul’tak. That’s why I’m trusting you to lead while I’m gone.” I was grateful for the featureless mask covering my face. The mirrored black surface would conceal the confliction that I felt when someone quoted the “Word of the Warden” at me.

 

I always found it comforting when Michael Carpenter had quotes scripture to me. There was something in that calm and permanent devotion that soothed the soul and calmed the body. Though I did not share it myself, I believed in the power of his conviction. While Ul’tak had that same manner to him, the effect was somewhat ruined by the knowledge that the scripture being quoted was just one of a thousand similar out of context blurbs that the priesthood of Nekheb was fond of parroting after hearing me speak them. I often couldn’t help but wonder if Moses had felt similarly frustrated wandering the desert, perpetually correcting how the Israelites were misquoting him.

 

Luckily, visions of Michael’s disappointment at the arrogance of making such a comparison quickly robbed me of any ego that might come along with that. The knight of the cross was probably the person I respected the most on Earth, though I suppose the man I respected the most in the galaxy was now a more valid moniker given the circumstances. He would have chastised me greatly for having the arrogance to think of myself in those terms. He would do so gently given our friendship, by my “divinity” would not be something he would treat lightly given his absolute faith in the capitol “G” God of Christianity.

 

I could probably deflect a bit of the inevitable lecture given that the Metatron blessed my coronation, but I was on theologically shaky ground at best. If he was willing to listen, and that was a pretty big “if.” I was reasonably certain my day to day activities as of late violated at least four of the big ten “though shalt not’s” by which the Catholic Knight of the Cross lived his life.

 

Hell’s Bells – if Charity Carpenter ever found out he might not get the chance. My best friend’s wife hadn’t even liked me as a Wizard. I couldn’t imagine her treating “newly minted god born from a necromantic ritual enacted at the behest of a fallen angel” as an upgrade. Her reaction struck me as more of the biblical variety. She very well might just grab Amoracchius out of Michael’s hands and proceed to the smiting. I would be smote.

 

“Live through today Harry,” I thought to myself as I took the staff offered to me by my first prime, feeling the sudden rush that accompanied contact with the magical artefact. Its surface glowed with a dull blue light from the runes and hieroglyphs I’d carved. It was not the Jaffa weapon I’d used when first I came to Nekheb, but a construct of my own making. The first weeks on Nekheb had been the hardest for me emotionally. I’d lost everything I knew. My friends, my pets, and all of my belongings were a galaxy away and years in the future. I’d spent some time crying in private, but falling apart hadn’t been a luxury I could afford.

 

There were too many people counting on me.

 

So I took that nervous energy and turned it into something productive – learning and applying the magic contained in Heka’s vast library of magical theory. It was slow going, even with the assistance of the librarians to point me in the right direction I hadn’t even learned a fraction of what it contained. But I had learned enough to give a new spin to some old favorites.

 

I’d pulled the hardwood beam from the wreckage of the old city, tearing it from the corpse of a burned-out building. Magical items needed to have a certain gravitas to them, a connection to their wielder and purpose. They were symbols as much as anything else, and I couldn’t think of a greater symbol for my own need to protect the people of Nekheb than a physical reminder of how I’d failed to protect so many of them or a better icon for taking actions in their defense. I’d carved and shaped the wood over months, lovingly tending to it till I felt it was the proper size and shape to apply magic to it. I’d never applied magic this complex to my staff before. It would have been expensive, time consuming, and the end results didn’t seem that much better considering how regularly I just used the damn thing as an oversized cudgel. My new staff was a work of art by comparison, smoky wood inlaid with gold and gems I’d pilfered from the treasury. Well, pilfered might be an exaggeration considering that they people of Nekheb considered the wealth of the state to be the property of the Lord Warden – but even a year wasn’t quite enough time to convince me that the vast treasure rooms of the palace were mine.

 

The down payment on a city block had allowed me to creature a more stable magical implement than I’d ever had in my life thanks to the glimmering emeralds, sapphires and rubies carved with interconnected magical symbols interwoven through a latticework of the magically charged ferrous bloodstone of the Goa’uld Naquadah.

 

It was worth a fortune in both mortal and magical circles.

 

It was probably the most amazing thing I’d ever made in my life.

 

It was still probably going to end up being used to beat someone over the head as an overpriced cudgel.

 

I patted Ul’tak’s armored shoulder with the hand not holding my staff, the ruby on the foci in my palm clacking loudly against its surface. “Good luck my friend. Don’t do anything crazy while I’m out.”

 

Ul’tak arched an eyebrow but declined to comment at that one. “I shall endeavor not to do anything that you would not do yourself, my Lord Warden.”

 

I blinked. “Was that a joke at my expense?”

 

“No my Lord.” Ul’tak replied in dry deadpan. “That would have been rude.”

 

“Stars and Stones, now is when you start understanding snark?” I sighed deeply. “A year of you taking everything so damn literally and it’s when I’m leaving that you crack a joke?”

 

“I follow the example of my Lord Warden.” UI’tak’s lip quirked. “One must save one’s humor for when it best frustrates those around thee.”

 

“Good bye Ul’tak.” I laughed. I really shouldn’t have been surprised that some of my sense of humor would end up rubbing off on the First Prime. The man spent more time around me than any other Jaffa on Nekheb, and my reputation for having a “peculiar” sense of humor was legendary among the people. Attempts from the warrior race to actually execute jokes that pleased the Lord Warden had thus far been mixed, but they were improving with time. The Ancient Jaffa was basically the only one who really seemed to get it, but the rest were catching up. Laughter bubbled up as I walked the length of the gate room to meet my companions.

 

To my surprise the priestess Muminah was dressed. She was wrapped in a mess of silk scarves that only partially obscured the view of her skin beneath them, but she was actually wearing something more than her traditional piercings. I chose not to comment on it out of fear that she might strip down to nothing just by virtue of me having mentioned their presence. Perhaps it was one of the internal reforms to the clergy that got passed with increasing regularity as of late. She bowed, apparently realizing my gaze was upon her. She looked up at me through her black tresses, hair grown out in apparent imitation of my own, and said. “Are we to go, Lord Warden?”

 

“We are.” I replied, pulling the page from my pocket and pushing the symbols on the circular device next to the gate before pressing the red stone at its center. The gate groaned to life, spinning about before a whoosh of blue spat out from the gate to open the portal within. I gnashed my teeth, wincing at the magic emanating from it and steadying myself on my staff.

 

Bob had rattled off a complex explanation of wormholes and how they interact with the magical energies of the surrounding environment, and I could bore you with the specifics of what they mean in the grand scale but the long and short of it is this. I hated that damn gate. It had been uncomfortable to be around it as a Wizard, it was agonizing as what I’d become. Every time I got within ten feet of an active gate it felt like someone was actively stabbing me in the back of the head.

 

“Heh,” Ammit’s crocodillan lips turned up in amusement when I gripped my staff. “I’ll tell you what, that’s one part of not having real power that I don’t miss. I used to have to psych myself up before going anywhere near the thing.”

 

“Cowering? That’s what lieutenants and slaves were for, not gods.” Enlil snorted, though it was clear that he’d found the experience no more pleasurable than Ammit judging by his facial expression.

 

“Well times are lean and your ex-wife is terrifying.” Ammit jibed. “So, you’re all out of slaves to cower for you at the moment.”

 

“I’ll confess.” Enlil shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind some slaves at some point. I am without holdings at the moment.”

 

I rolled my eyes, hard. He’d been dropping hints that he was owed slaves with increasing regularity. I’d been ignoring them with equal fervor. “You’ll be without legs if you don’t start walking towards that portal.”

 

Ammit snorted, rolling her eyes as the annoyed Enlil walked through the portal. “You know, eventually he’s going to figure it out right?”

 

“Figure it out?” I replied as the priestess walked through the portal.

 

“That you like us.” Ammit shook her head. “That you don’t actually want to kill us. And that you aren’t Heka.”

 

I stepped back into a defensive posture, earning another chuckle from Ammit.

 

“Warden, I am not stupid. I knew Heka since before the death of Apep. We were spawned from the same Queen, have the same memories that inform our personalities. You are not Heka, you never were.” She flexed her taloned hand. “I don’t know if you’re one of his children or just a lieutenant who discovered enough of his secrets to secure rule of his dominion, but Heka had a number of personality traits that you just don’t. A mantle will change a man, but that is the work of centuries – not hours.”

 

I continued to stand still and silent, ready to strike at her if she came at me. The goddess was tough, I’d seen her kill a Hydra with her bare fists. If she came for my throat I wasn’t positive that I could take her before she injured me. Under the circumstances, even a minor injury could leave me easy prey for the Summer Court.

 

“Honestly Warden.” Ammit’s eye was the thing of legends as she rubbed her forehead with the palm of her fist. “I don’t plan to attack you for killing my blistering idiot of a brother, the man was entirely wasteful with his talent and resources.”

 

“What tipped you off?” I replied, not exactly relaxing but not mustering any more magical power to strike the goddess.

 

“The Winter Queen didn’t roast you on a spit for forcibly sodomizing the Winter Lady at Chronos’ behest at the Battle of Djer’s Lament in the last great war.” Ammit replied. “Even after she’d secured a deal to fight the forces of Chronos on your behalf, she didn’t make any apparent attempt to do you bodily harm or make you suffer. Not even through an intermediary. You’re clever, but the demon Queen of Winter is capable of twisting law into a dagger through her enemies’ hearts.”

 

“… Yeah, that’s a tell.” I agreed, my stomach somewhat sick at the prospect of exactly what Mab’s vengeance for something like that might be. Pillars of salt came to mind. My eye twitched briefly as I realized that while Mab knew she did not need to seek revenge against me, the unstable Lady of Winter very well might not.

 

“Enlil is eventually going make the same connection I did, and he’s going to be less tolerant of having beholden himself to a god centuries his junior rather than millennia his senior.” Ammit smiled. “Or he would, if I weren’t around treating you like my former brother.”

 

Ah, a shakedown. I was wondering when she’d get to it. “What do you want?”

 

“Nothing.” Ammit snorted. “I’m not some Furling. You’ve also gone out of your way to save my life and treat me with dignity. I’ll deal with you as honestly as you deal with me. I just wanted you to know that I know, and that I don’t care. But if you ever threaten me again with selling me out to the Furlings, I want you to know that I will happily sell everything I know for my freedom from them. To Enlil, to the Furlings, to the System Lords, and to anyone else who will guarantee my freedom. I didn’t fight for centuries on the first world just to end up a puppet to the Demon Queen. This trip ends my debt the second I walk through that gate. Swear that to me and we keep being friends.”

 

A confusing sense of déjà vu swept through me as I realized that I’d had a similar conversation earlier that day, just with the roles swapped. Stars and stones – I was Ammit’s Mab.

 

I couldn’t help it, I burst into laughter. I spoke, hiccupping out the words. “I’m sorry, it’s just. I’m not used to being on this side of the equation. I’m usually the one being obstreperous to someone with more mojo than me.” I sighed, breathing hard after laughing myself silly. “You have my word Ammit. You take this trip with me and I’ll consider us even.”

 

“Good. That wasn’t hard now, was it?” She smiled toothily, tossing her saurian bulk into the portal. She shimmered halfway across the galaxy as I considered the goddess. Crazy cannibal though she might be, I was certain that she’d keep her word. Ammit and I might eventually come to blows, but I got the sense that it wouldn’t be a surprise when it eventually came. Subterfuge wasn’t really her game.

 

I steeled myself and followed her through the Stargate.

 

No matter how times I went through the gate I never seemed to get used to the sensation. Bob assured me that it shouldn’t be physically possible for me to feel the sensation of having my existence compressed through the capillary in space time, that time and mass didn’t exist in the same proportions within the micro-second transitions between realspace and the wormhole.

 

But I did.

 

I felt it every time.

 

And it was agony.

 

Though, perhaps not quite so painful as the realization that ran through my mind in the split second before we departed Nekheb. I had forgotten to tell the children that there would be no story tonight and that I would not be there to tuck them in.


	5. Chapter 5

I bit back a scream as I exited the wormhole, the shearing sensation of having been so rapidly compressed then restored almost more than I could handle. My ear drums rang with the thunderous beating of my own heart, as I staggered out from the gate an unintentional corona of magical energies coruscating out from the wormholes surface and around my body. Bolts of electrical discharge spat our around my feet as they touched the ground, searing through the thick moss growing around the stone plinth upon which the gate stood at the center of a ruined temple, leaving the surface scourged clean beneath them. The warden’s cloak whipped around me, born by sorcerous wind like the wings of some monstrous bat, catching up eddies of the etheric lightning.

 

I did not breathe easily till the gate's magic's stopped, the swirling portal of blue light closing behind me and abruptly cutting off the searing waves of lightning that accompanied my arrival. It was a couple seconds before I entirely had my bearings and stopped leaning against my staff.

 

My companions were several steps ahead of me, having previously traveled with me and experienced the side effects that came with transporting me through the gate. Minus the high priestess, of course, the arcane warding about her person allowed her to stand at the center of any number of hazardous magical energies without fear - which only seemed to go further to confirm my divine purpose in her mind.

 

Enlil poked his head out from behind a stone pillar, his eyes narrowed. "That is getting worse with time."

 

"Obviously." Ammit snorted, her crocodilian bulk comically posed behind another pillar in a way that couldn't help but remind me of one of the hippos from fantasia. "But I'd imagine it can't be helped at this point. Given that he allowed it to be seen by the masses already, I'd imagine that it was actually integrated within the mantle at this point. The stories of the warden appearing are too widespread to even begin to curtail them."

 

My eye twitched as I gritted my teeth, calming the irrational stab of anger that ran through me at her casual reference to the mythos of the Lord Warden. I had discovered far too late that the mythology built up around me had actual physical consequences upon how I interacted with the world within which I lived. The worshippers of "The Warden" believed that the warden was supposed to show up in an overtly showy display of magical power, and the excess magic generated by my "godhood" forced that to be true.

 

It was the most obvious change to my person as a result of the mythology that had become attached to the burgeoning mantle of the “Warden of Nekheb” but far from the only one I’d caught. It was mostly little things that I couldn’t prove but they were enough to scare me more than a little bit.

 

Though not as much, I’ll grant you, as my near abject terror at the newly minted mantle to which I now seemed to have access. I could feel it within me, a new well of power distinct from the magic I'd used all my life, the power of belief. It was like a constant pressure at the edge of my mind, a swelling tide rising against the damn I'd done my best to erect against it. It was strength beyond what I'd ever had at my fingers, but to use it would not be without consequence. Just the ambient spillover scared me, the influence it could have on me without me ever realizing it.

 

I'd met my id before, my darker self - the image of every desire in my heart. He was dangerous. And I feared that tapping into that well of belief would make me into the man he'd always wanted me to become. Power comes at a price, and I didn't want to know how the power of my follower's belief would reshape me. Their image of me was skewed at best, and their sensibilities were positively primeval.

 

Sleep came to me rarely. I didn’t feel the need often and when I did my mind was clouded with a choir of voices demanding my attention. It was as if the entire city of Chicago had simultaneously decided start shouting at me with megaphones every time I closed my eyes. Meditation had helped mitigate the noise somewhat, but my Wizard’s education hadn’t sufficiently prepared me for the sudden influx of prayer directed towards me.

 

The knowledge in Heka’s library hadn’t helped much. Unsurprisingly, he had not committed a great deal of effort into documenting the day to day minutiae of godhood. Sharing wasn’t a skill he was overly adept at exercising and preparing the next generation of Goa’uld for success was tantamount to engineering his own downfall. Enlil and Ammit likely knew something of what I needed to do in order to make the experience more manageable, but that would require admitting that they knew something I did not already know. I didn’t dare appear weak to them – especially now.

 

I ignored Enlil and Ammit's discussion over the best way to manage my image as I cast light through my silver pentacle amulet, shimmering silver light casting away shadows from the seemingly endless ruins. It was beautiful, crumbling white stone covered in thick green moss. It was old, as old as anything I'd ever seen. What might once have been carvings were so worn by wind and water that they held only the vague impression civilization. Tiny pockets of wall less exposed to the elements held glimpses of what the structure had once been, square letters jutting out from the porous stone. The space thrummed with an energy that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do history, a long dead history of people far gone in time.

 

I whistled a low note, impressed at the sheer magnitude of it. The building seemed to stretch out for a mile in any direction, it's ceiling so high that I couldn't even see it with the dull light of my amulet. "This place is huge. Who built it?"

 

"Not us and not the Asgard. I think. yes, yes it would have to be them." Enlil chewed his lip kneeling down to brush the moss away from one of the less damaged sections of wall. He stroked his beard, tapping the interwoven beads with his many jeweled rings. "This is a world of the gate builders!"

 

"The builders?" Ammit blinked, eyeing the stone structure speculatively. "We haven't found a structure this complete since Dakara. Where is this system?"

 

"In the middle of Lord Yu's domain, unless I misread that gate address." Enlil replied in confusion. "But he would not leave a structure this magnificent without at least a compliment of Jaffa Warriors. It's invaluable just for the cultural victory of being able to hold another great temple of divinity, never mind that he's one of the few of us who can actually use the damn thing."

 

"But that makes no sense. How could he not know about this place?" Ammit growled, her voice nervous. "Certainly he would want to exploit a wonder of this degree."

 

"I might have a though on that subject, honored Eater of the Sin." Muminah spoke aloud.

 

Ammit arched an eyebrow, the priestess was not in the habit of interrupting the Goa'uld unless it was of grave importance. "Speak priestess. I would hear your thought."

 

"I believe that Lord Yu did not wish to be trapped on a world without a functioning method of returning home." Muminah replied. "For while this structure is impressive, it appears to be without a pedestal by which one might control the eye of the gods."

 

Oh, hells bells. She was right. The waist-high circular device capped with a glowing red crystal that normally allowed for its user to operate the gate was conspicuously absent. Without it, we would be stuck on the planet until someone sent a rescue party. Ul'tak would eventually do so, regardless of his orders, but not for the week I'd told him to expect us to be gone.

 

A trap perhaps? Strand me on another planet to make me easy prey for the forces of Summer? No, that was too straightforward for Mab. Strand both us and the humans of Earth? Possibly, but that would require that they'd already wronged her to a sufficient degree that such activity was justified in her mind - and I couldn't see the benefit to her in doing so.

 

I turned to Enlil, expecting the easily agitated god to be in a fit of frustration, only to discover the man entirely unaffected by the revelation. There was no anger, no swearing in Babylonian, Sumerian, Akkadian or Assyrian, no pulling at his braided beard, nothing that I would have expected out of him at the prospect of being stranded on some alien world.

 

If anything, the explanation just seemed to have mollified his concerns. He actually smiled as he said "Ah yes, that does explain it. No matter - it shouldn't prove much of an impediment."

 

Ammit nodded in agreement, "Manually dial the address and have the warden toss a bolt of lightning at it?"

 

"If you don't mind doing the actual dialing, I've never been particularly good at manipulating one of those by hand." Enlil brushed the front of his fringed skirts, dusting off the petal shaped fabrics as he eyed the symbols around the ring of the gate speculatively. "But I'm going to need a look at the sky to determine which of those symbols is the point of origin. There are four I don't recognize on that ring."

 

"I recognize all but two great Lord of the Storm." Mumiah bowed deeply. "Do you wish that I identify them so that we might compare our knowledge?"

 

Faster than I could blink Enlil moved, the back of his hand rocketing towards the priestess' face. The full weight of his superhuman strength seemed to be directed for the priestess' cheek, a bone crushing backhanded blow. The priestess screamed, her eyes wide in horror as the god’s first came to an abrupt stop inches from the girl's cheek. Ammit held Enlils arm at the wrist, gripping hard.

 

Something terrible flashed in the god’s eyes, a spiteful edge that lasted even after his eyes ceased to glow. He strained against the Egyptian demon’s unyielding grip, hatred that seemed entirely disproportionate to the situation smoldering in his voice as he addressed the goddess.

 

"She dared to speak to her betters as an equal." Enlil snarled. "A high priestess should know better."

 

"You were about to strike an unarmed woman in front of the Warden hard enough that you might have killed her." Ammit replied dryly. "The simplest intellect in the Warden's kingdom already does know better."

 

I cut across Enlil's reply, putting a comforting hand on Muminah's shoulder. "You will thank Ammit, Enlil."

 

"For what?" The bearded god growled.

 

"For saving your life." I replied, not bothering to suppress the glowing pits of anger I knew were visible even through my mask's slatted eyes. "It would have proved awkward were I forced to kill you before my meeting with the Tau'ri. Especially given how competent of an administrator you’ve proven to be, it would be embarrassing to lose you to something as foolish as overstepping your boundaries in so painfully transparent a display of weakness."

 

It was the sort of thing I would have expected Lara Raith to say, but I found myself modeling my interactions of the White Court’s defacto leader often as of late. More often than not the implication of having acted with insufficient guile was enough to silence the Goa’uld nobleman’s increasingly regular bouts of rage. He wasn’t about to believe that I actually cared about my chattel, but he seemed generally accepting of my unwillingness to allow him free reign over my property.

 

Enlil ground his teeth, biting back the response I knew he was dying to say. He was quick to anger, but he wasn't outright stupid. You don't get to live as long as Enlil if you were stupid. And Enlil was old enough for Ammit to consider him a contemporary. I didn't know much Babylonian mythology, but Bob had filled me in on some of the highlights. Enlil had once been head of the Babylonian pantheon till his queen consort had teamed up with his rival, ousting him from his pantheon and effectively banishing him from any semblance of power for the next 3200 years. He breathed heavily, lowering his arm before muttering a half-hearted apology to my High Priestess. "I should not have tried to strike you High Priestess. It is not my place to discipline you for speaking out of turn."

 

"I .. " She swallowed nervously and I squeezed her shoulder gently, affirming that I would be there to protect her. The high priestess' smile took on a genuine look of joy at my physical contact. She turned to me, beaming her pearly whites at me before replying to Enlil. "I have no need for your apology, Lord of the Storm. I should not have spoken before you addressed me."

 

Not quite the exchange I had been going for, but it was asking for too much if I was going to try to get a genuine apology from Enlil. He considered mortals to be ephemeral nuisances, potential sources of power as a group but individually of minor importance in comparison to his own place in the universe. It was a common enough attitude from the non-humans I’d met. Hell, there were even some on the White Council wizards with a bad habit of seeming mortals as being too ephemeral to be worthy of notice.

 

Stars and Stones, I should be counting my blessings. By the standards of the Goa’uld Enlil had been treating Muminah with kid gloves, entire cities had been burned to the ground by the ancient pantheons for lesser offenses. The old gods favored old testament style solutions to social problems. Given the choice between negotiating with a disobedient mortal and using their time elsewhere, they favored just frying the mortal with a bolt of lightning and going on with their day.

 

It made me a bit queasy to think that I was empathizing with the idea of just killing a mortal to save time. But the sheer scale of death I’d been dealing with on a day to day basis was hardening me to it. How could it not? The Jaffa of Chronos weren’t evil men, not any more than any other Jaffa in the universe, but they would slaughter the people in my care without a second thought. This was war, the second war I’d started in my lifetime – though I suppose chronologically I had effectively started both within less than a week of each other.

 

Time travel is a bitch like that.

 

The casualties had been better than what might have been otherwise expected, given my Fae allies and the fleets I’d stolen from Sokar’s fleet after the destruction of Netu, but I wasn’t winning the war outright even before I’d started a fight with Moloch’s finest. I’d buried more good men in the past year than I’d met before in my life. I’d tried to remember their names at first, but it just hadn’t been manageable. There were too many. Just far too many. Bob kept a list for me now, so that could memorialize them when this was all over, but I had been forced to just compress individual lives to statistics out of sheer necessity.

 

I was losing what made me human. I was losing what made me Harry. Hell’s bells, I didn’t even have my own name any more – just a mangled sobriquet. I turned to the gate, musing aloud. “Why do you think the Tau’ri chose this place for a meeting? I can’t imagine them electing to meet us somewhere that they need to manually dial the gate.”

 

“That is odd…” Ammit agreed, chewing her lip. “Perhaps it was the Demon if Winter’s doing? A way of ensuring that neither side was easily able to depart without either coming to an agreement or slaughtering each other?”

 

“Possibly, but I can’t see O’Neill choosing to be trapped with me anywhere. American’s aren’t known for negotiating from a point of potential weakness.” I shook my head. “And I can’t see them launching a potential suicide mission against me given that I haven’t done anything against them specifically.”

 

I might have stopped being a detective but I had not, however, lost the powers of observation that made me a competent detective. Easily ninety percent of being a decent private eye had to do with picking your clients, determining which of them were honestly looking for help and which of them were just full of it. I’d made mistakes before, picked clients who’d not had my best interests at heart, but as a rule I was pretty good at figuring out how people operated.

 

If O’Neill or someone from the SCG wanted to meet here, it meant there was something I wasn’t seeing. There was a way for their people to escape without requiring actual magic to make that happen, possibly a ring transporter or a passage to the surface, but there would be a route to safety. I observed the room, looking around it for anything out of the ordinary that could hint to what I was missing. I caught it after only a moment. A tiny fleck of smoldering red in the thick green moss hinted at the Tau’ri’s presence.

 

I strode past Enlil, walking directly through him to force him to move out of my way, as I caught a glimpse of glowing red embers out of the corner of my eye. It was a pitiful thing, I might not have noticed it at all if not for the near absolute darkness within the ruins outside the light of my pendant.

 

I kneeled down and picked up the source of the light, the armored joints at my knees creaking loudly and echoing off the ruins as I did so. I lifted a still smoking small tube of translucent paper wrapped around a tightly packed tobacco leaves, an unfiltered cigarette. My nose crinkled as the pungent aroma of it, rolling the thin tube in my fingers to see the blue “Export Belomorkanal” logo stamped along its side. My blood ran cold as I ran through my conversation with Mab in my mind.

 

At no point in our conversation had Mab explicitly identified the people we were meeting with as members of American run Stargate Command, only as warriors of the first world. And there were plenty of nations on Earth who would be none too pleased to discover that an Alien species had begun supplying the American government with advanced alien weaponry. I stood up and turned on my heel, realizing just how poorly defended we were in the open center of the gate room. “They’re already here!”

 

And, as if on cue, several dozen heavily armed Russian soldiers emerged from where they’d been hiding, flanked by a number of men in grey cloaks wielding swords. Wardens? No, I swore angrily – they’d brought the brute squad out of Archangel, a specialized group of monster hunters operating under the guidance of Simon Petrovich – the White Council’s go to guy when it came to killing vampires. Think the Wardens but not quite so cute and cuddly.

 

A small army of monster killing wizards and Russian special forces would have distracted most people in that situation. My attention, however, was focused on a massive man and a little girl in a pretty blue dress. Her tiny features were scrunched up into a look of utter hatred and there were flecks of arcane power sparking from the tips of her buckled leather shoes.

 

“Ivy,” I whispered in horror, realizing why she was here. Ivy was the keeper of all human knowledge. She remembered things that everyone else could not. She would know the specifics of what Heka had done to make Traitor's Bane. She would know exactly what I'd done to become what I am. And, as I'd never actually written anything down myself, she'd know exactly what my clergy and my enemies had recorded on my behalf.

She'd only see the monster Heka and the power he'd gained.

Ivy, the little girl who held all the knowledge of mankind and child who I called my friend, was here to kill me a year before we’d ever met on earth. And short of ending a child’s life, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to stop her.


	6. Chapter 6

I flipped the control to my handheld shield emitter before I’d had time to consciously register exactly how totally screwed I was. The orange-yellow cone of light shot up around me, a dull thrum of ritual magic forming a circle around me. It was really a genius little bit of ritual magic – an interface within my gauntlet powered by a pinky sized chip of the magically reactive stone to empower a barrier capable of repelling both physical and magical attacks. It wouldn’t be quite as powerful as a shield empowered by my own magical reserves, but it didn’t require the active use of my own magical reserves, freeing them up for offensive uses if necessary.

 

The Russians soldiers were a problem, but mostly one of logistics. Bullets weren’t going to get through my defenses, but they also tended to ricochet. I didn’t want to get any of my companions killed by bullet aimed for me. For that matter, I didn’t overly want to kill some poor soldier who’d gotten dragged into a war between supernatural nations. There was no way that either the Archive or the White Council had told these guys the whole story about what they were getting into.

 

There was also the issue of how to disable the Soldiers without accidentally killing one of them with magic. Yes, by the standards of the White Council, I was probably already too far gone for them not to consider me a warlock, but I wasn’t going to intentionally violate one of the Seven Laws. Not while there was breath in my body.

 

And to be sure, any fight between me and the White Council’s brute squad would involve magic. It would be loud, it would be showy, and it would be downright explosive. If the Wardens were the US army, the Brute Squad was something more like Delta Force. I’d been a wizard for most of my adult life and I had only a vague idea of what they actually did other than kill any inhuman who got fresh ideas about attacking wizards.

 

And I was standing, smack dab in the middle of them, wearing a Warden’s cloak. Hell, my actual title was “Lord Warden.” I hadn’t really thought about it, but there was no way they weren’t going to take that as a personal insult. Stars and stones, they probably thought I’d possessed some unlucky warden and was just wearing his skin. It wasn’t exactly like I could correct that impression either.

 

I mean, really? What was I supposed to say? “No, no. I’m not a god possessing your warden. I’m a warden from the future who ended up possessing a god’s corpse after a mishap with the Darkhallow written in the Word of Kemmler because a fallen angel forced my soul into it after necromancy was used on me to bring me back from the dead. I just look like what happens when a god possesses a Wizard and rises to the pantheons of old because I accidentally enacted a ritualistic necromantic ascension as part of a forbidden ritual that was hidden by the ancient gods because they misused it in their interactions with outsiders. You can just check my identity with my past self, you know the guy who just started a war with the vampire court by breaking the rules of the Unseelie Accords at an official event.”

 

Christ, I was really going to have to put some thought into wording that in a way that didn’t make me sound like the new Kemmler if I ever wanted to actually go back to Earth. Because as of right now, the glares leveled at me by the Brute Squad almost felt earned. I got the distinct sense that if they were running the show, we would have been flash fried the second we got out of the gate. But I might be projecting on that one I supposed. It felt like a very “Morgan” solution to the problem. Cut its head off and then ask questions after it was dead so you could be certain you could ignore the answers without anyone to disagree with your logic.

 

Even without the brute squad or the Russians, I couldn't be sure of victory.

 

I wasn’t going to underestimate Ivy.

 

Ivy wasn’t the little girl’s given name. She didn't have one. It was the name I’d given her because I felt strange referring to a seven year old as “The Archive” rather than calling her a name like a normal person. She’d been the mediator between the Red Court and White Council regarding a duel between Duke Ortega and myself. I didn’t know much about the Archive, other than that she was scary powerful and just downright scary when she felt the need to be. She was a signatory on the Unseelie Accords, meaning that she was effectively considered her own independent nation within the magical world. More importantly, it meant that the signatories of the Accords felt that she’d earned the right to be considered their peer.

 

The entire White Council was one such peer organization. The Red Court of Vampires was another. I did not want to end up in a tussle with her if I could avoid it. I had only the vaguest idea of what she was capable of doing or what her weaknesses could possibly be, which in the supernatural world was effectively entering into a fist fight both blindfolded and with one’s hands tied behind one’s back. My own weakness in fighting her was all too obvious.

 

Even if I could hurt her, I wasn’t going be able to bring myself to do so. She was a six year old child, a six year old girl at that. Her dress had little pink flowers sewn into her pockets with goofy eyes and smiley faces. There was no way that I could bring myself to hurt a kid.

 

Ivy was innocent. She was a little girl who liked playing with kittens and had a sweet laugh. I liked her.

 

My companions, however, would not show similar restraint. The pair of pre-biblical badasses came from an era where the punishment for mouthing off to one’s elders could agreeably be death by stoning, and that was from the more liberal minded parents. Ammit had very likely already sized up the little girl as a potential entrée.

 

If I didn’t want Ivy to end up on the wrong side of Ammit’s jaws or Enlil’s Zat I was going to need to diffuse the situation, fast. I faced Ivy and referred to her by her title rather than the name my past self would give her a year in the future. “To what do I owe this visit, Archive?”

 

“Oh, Uncle, we hardly need be so formal.” Ivy smiled at me, an expression entirely devoid of mirth. “After all, you and the Father of Words were the ones who cursed my lineage with knowledge unending.”

 

Muminah gasped, whispering “The Scribe of Thoth yet lives?” as she looked from me to the Archive and back. Yet another piece of Goa’uld history I would have to research, just perfect. I didn’t want to have to bash my head against the wall, yet again, struggling to find anything on Thoth’s folly. The great library of Nekheb held twenty thousand years’ worth of meticulous record keeping with a thousand year gap in which virtually every book and scroll had been tossed into the fire. If I ever met that prick I was going to punch him in the face, just on principle.

 

The immediate use of the girl’s title without introduction drew a cautious look from the man standing behind her. He glared at me with predatory hatred. Jared Kincaid was the bodyguard of the Archive, her attendant for all activities which she, as a six year old, would be unable to complete herself, and effectively her second in command. The man was a scion, the product of a human and a demon. He was easily the second most dangerous person in the room. He was a damn good shot and I’d never seen him miss – ever.

 

According to my Mentor Ebenezer McCoy, the man was known as the Hellhound in some circles. Specifically, he was known as that within the community of supernatural assassins. I didn’t know the specifics of my mentor’s feud with Kincaid, but I hadn’t felt much like talking with Ebenezer after he revealed his own position as Blackstaff – the resident assassin for the White Council. He was armed for bear, carrying a large weapon that I knew would be loaded with an array of specialized rounds.

I was careful to keep him in my field of view as I continued to address the Archive. “I am a bit confused at the need for such force. And while I can understand the presence of the Brute Squad as a representative of the White Council’s interests, I really must question the necessity of brining the mortals into a supernatural affair. This is highly irregular behavior for a signatory member of the Unseelie Accords.”

 

The little girl arched a tiny brow, her face betraying no apparent surprise at how well-informed I was about her companions. She replied to me, a spiteful edge to her cultured voice. “It would be a highly irregular interaction between accorded nations, “Lord Warden,” however – as I hardly need remind you – the Kingdom of Nekheb is not a signatory member of the accords. We were entirely effective at repulsing your Empire prior to requiring such pleasantries.”

 

“Not entirely.” Ammit grinned, flashing a mouth full of fangs.

 

“Ah Ammit – yes, I do recall you devouring one of my predecessors.” The Archive’s face turned a slight shade of green. “I shall not repeat her mistakes.”

 

“Yes, yes.” I shot Ammit a glare that I hoped communicated “stop antagonizing the scary little girl” even through my mask. “I would prefer that we resolved… whatever this is… peaceably.”

 

“Dear Uncle, I am well aware of how you consider peaceful solutions to be the exclusive provenance of losing battles. If you had any chance of victory without horrific casualties you would have slain me just to avoid having such obvious evidence of your own failures.” Ivy smiled, a sadistic gleam flickering in her young eyes. “But you are correct. It is best for both of us if this goes easily. You will be coming with us Lord Warden. I cannot allow you to continue to throw the orderly procession of the galaxy into chaos. I will not allow a Second Folly to come to fruition.”

 

“You don’t have to do this.” I spoke in a voice of forced calm. “We can talk. Come to an accord – reach a conclusion that doesn’t require armed men and soldiers.”

 

“I remember eight thousand years’ worth of Goa’uld peace, “Lord Warden.” I remember every second of the ‘peace’ of Ra. I have seen and read every record of your continuing ‘peace’ since your people were censured by the Queens of Summer and winter.” Ivy shook her little head, putting more force into in than she strictly intended to in a display of youthful enthusiasm. “The Archive took the knowledge of how to become what you are from the pantheons. Your ascension is a blight, a violation of the limitations placed upon you to prevent what came before. It can not be permitted.”

 

“I’m not the monster you think I am.” I replied.

 

“You are exactly the monster I believe you to be Warden.” Ivy replied. “You sacrificed an immortal in the heart of a galactic leyline. You have embroiled planets populated by millions of mortals in war, death, and famine – on little more than a whim and a pretense of ‘humanity.” She shook her little head. “It must end.”

 

“Oh come on. Chronos started that war.” I protested. “He was the one who went and started tossing shoggoths around like they were a viable weapon of war.”

 

“The Titan’s time will come. Perhaps even at the hands of your warriors – but you will not be among their ranks when they do.” Ivy sighed. “I grow weary of this conversation, it benefits no one. Kincaid – do it.”

 

The Hellhound raised his odd looking weapon, pulled the trigger and I was greeted not by the thunderous sound of exploding gunpowder but instead by a thup-hiss of compressed air. A blurry shape soared across the room, slow enough that I could actually follow its path with my eye. I reflexively raised my arms to protect my face and yelled in surprise as a silver dart pierced the shield around me. I swore as I ripped the dart from my arm, looking down at the fletched silver tube with a long needle protruding from one end.

 

I could already feel the sedatives beginning to cloud my mind as I attempted to muster a shield of my own magic – realizing the gap the Archive had exploited in my artefact shield. Goa’uld artefact shields were incredibly powerful, capable of casting aside the most incredible violence and magical power cast at them, but they had been designed to allow their bearer to grapple with a foe if necessary. A sufficiently slow moving object without magic to empower it would circumvent the shield, and my armor was made of ensorcelled leather laced with rings of naquadah and iron. Good against arrows or bullets, but not needles.

 

I raised the hand holding my shield bracelet to create a dome around me, but it was too late. I’d been focusing on the Brute Squad and the Archive – I should have been paying attention to the mortals. They all had weapons similar to Kincaid’s air gun. I was a pincushion before I’d even had a chance to consider casting a spell. I don’t know how many of the darts were required to render me inert, but I was willing to wager that the forty or so that actually managed to make contact were effectively overkill. I staggered, unable to stand, and mouthed in horror as I watched my companions suffer similar fates to my own.

 

Enlil had dropped down in an undignified mess of tunic and beards, his eyes bulging as they darted around from person to person. I knew the man well enough to know that a series of horrific phrases were being directed to me in Babylonian, even if his lips weren’t cooperating enough to actually speak them. Muminah actually managed to dodge the first salvo, a lifetime of training as one of the priestesses of Heka having prepared her for any number of attempted assassinations.

 

She spun around in a dance of sliks, shedding the loose garments as she went to prevent as confusing of a target as she could while advancing on a Brute Squad Wizard. The man raised a shield between him and the priestess, only to discover how useless magical protections were against the warding tattoos of my clergy. She planted her foot firmly in the man’s solar plexus, pushing her full weight behind the kick. He actually coughed up blood as his sternum collapsed inward, pushing a wedge of bone into his lungs.

 

A horrified Russian raised a pistol to shoot her, earning a broken arm for his trouble when talons ripped into it at twisted up. Ammit’s massive bulk was apparently less susceptible to whatever chemical they’d pumped into us, she roared before biting down into the man’s shoulder and shaking side to side like a shark on its prey. His gargled cry of shock was mostly reflexive. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

 

“Not again…” Ammit ripped the darts from her body, her reptilian eyes glazing over as she dropped to one knee. “I won’t be taken again.” Her attempts to bat away the darts were futile. The Russians could fire them at her as fast as she could rip them out.

 

Muminah cried out, screaming, “My Lord Warden” before there was a resounding crack of green light. I watched in horrified fascination as vines enveloped the priestess, growing out from the moss covered floor to trap her within their thorny manacles.

 

Ivy sighed, striding across the room towards me. I took in a series of labored breaths, struggling just to maintain consciousness. Kincaid made a sound of protest, but she just fixed him with a hard glare – or as close to a glare as a six year old glare could manage – and he stayed behind. Her tiny footsteps clicked ominously as she crossed the room. Hells Bells, she was actually skipping towards me.

 

She stopped immediately in front of me, reaching her little hand into my helmet to retract the mask covering my face. I reached up towards her hand, but I didn’t even have the strength to repel her tiny frame. My arms just sort of floundered against my body, fingers jiggling limply.

 

She looked at the paper-white skin and endless pits of stars filling what had once been my mouth and eyes, watching the flecks of star strew sky flow out from my mouth and eyes, before shaking her head in what might have seemed a morose gesture on someone who wasn’t wearing a hair ribbon with a bright pink Hello Kitty logo. “You should have stayed in obscurity, Uncle.”

 

“I…” I forced my lips to move, willing my tongue to form words as I exhaled. “I sur… I surre…” The excess saliva in my mouth was making it difficult to avoid slobbering on myself. “I surrender.”

 

“Yes.” Ivy agreed, using an an all too pleased tone. “I very much suspect you do.”

 

She turned from me and walked away as her bodyguard took up the spot in which she was standing. She spoke over her shoulder. “Kincaid?”

 

“Yes Archive?” Replied the Hellhound as he towered over me.

 

“Don’t be gentle.” Intoned the Archive as she waved her hand in front of the Stargate, summoning a shimmering blue portal within its ring. On a less drug addled occasion I would have found that trick to be extremely impressive.

 

But in my hazy state of mind the only thing I could really focus on was Kincaid whipping his leg up and towards my head. The last thing I remember is the feeling of Kincaid’s boot cracking against the side of my face, knocking the living daylights out of me as I fell into blackness.


	7. Chapter 7

My eyes snapped open within the dream, meeting my other self in an illusionary representation of my palatial suite on Nekheb. It had been a while since I’d met my subconscious and he’d had an image update since last we’d met. He was no longer wearing the black leather duster and tailor made clothing, though the scrupulously manicured goatee remained. His appearance now mirrored my own, complete with porcelain skin and star strewn eyes. He wore a tightly fitting black garment that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Bollywood production of Macbeth, complete with silver inlaid hieroglyphs around the collar.

 

He eyed me with a look of constrained disgust. “You are a moron.”

 

“Nice to see you too.” I sighed, resigning myself to a lecture from my subconscious as I stood up from the wooden stool and walked around the stone table. There were a number of objects on it, maps, battle plans, casualty reports, all the papers and books that had become a grim tally of my own inability to protect the people who’d become my own. I noticed that he’d made a number of red slashes through the proposed assault on one of Moloch’s fortresses, apparently pre-emptively having written off part of the fleet as casualties.

 

He ignored my glibness and repeated his statement, putting greater emphasis on each word. “You. Are. A. Moron.”

 

“I heard you the first time.” I replied to my other, leaning upon the windowsill and staring out into the distance. It was an image of Nekheb as I’d last seen it, a sprawling metropolis just beginning to come back into its glory. The fire gutted districts destroyed in Chronos’ initial invasion were beginning to show signs of recovery, stand stone buildings rising from the blackened ruins. We’d had an influx of war refugees to take the place of the fallen, and then some. If I really squinted my eyes I could just see the distant shape of tents outside the city’s walls where tribes of Jaffa and Humans had taken root, waiting for their opportunity to live in the great city.

 

“And if I repeated it an additional thousand times I don’t think that it would make the point with sufficient gravitas to hammer it in through your thick skull. You’re still acting like you’re back in Chicago, like your just Harry Dresden PI – downtrodden savior of the desperate and hopeless. ” He held up a pale hand, turning it so that I could just see the blackened veins beneath his palm. “That life is gone. That Harry is dead. You are never going back.”

 

My eyes flashed with rage as I rounded on my other, but he just continued to speak as though my rage was of no consequence. And really it was, it wasn’t as though I could hurt the manifestation of my subconscious mind – much as I’d like to. “You’re actively trying to fight being who you are. And its making you stupid. You have infinite resources at your beck and call – entire planets worth of worshippers to give you additional power, and what do you do with it? You use secondhand trinkets from a war ten thousand years ago to protect yourself because you’re afraid of being strong.”

 

“I’m afraid of tapping in to something that is going to re-write who I am on a fundamental level.” I replied to my other. “I’m afraid of becoming a slave to belief in the Lord Warden.”

 

“You have a religion that is based around the idea that you are an ass-kicking borderline Jedi cum Gandalf capable of literally crushing Hydras with your brain, and you’re worried that they might make you more like that?” My other arched his brow. “How terrible – you might have to save someone or defeat some great evil. And we wouldn’t want that.”

 

“You know as much as I know about what that stuff will do to us, which is precisely nothing with a side order of ‘I reckon.’ I get it, its power. You’re all about that, but power comes at a price. And neither one of us knows exactly what price I’d end up paying.” I shuddered. “And I can’t be sure of how much the belief of the people we’re going to be fighting works into the mix. I could turn out as some sort of evil sorcerer god like Heka just because they believe that I’m him.”

 

“Well heaven forbid that you leave your library long enough to actually go out into the world and actually work on your image.” My double pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. “Or take advantage of the literal harem throwing themselves at you.”

 

“The harem who seem to be under the impression that they’re supposed to be committing ritual suicide afterwards?” I waved away the idea. “No thanks.”

 

“So just forbid them from doing it.” My double replied in emphatic staccato, dragging out the last five words in deliberate over emphasis. “Or go out and find someone else. You are a King now, even if you’re not willing to admit that you’re a god. You have options man – use them.”

 

I shook my head. “I can’t do that. There’s nobody who’d be on even footing with me. I’d either meet someone who was enamored by power or was afraid of it. Either way I don’t think they’d ever like me for me.”

 

“Save me from pointless Chivalry.” My other looked skyward, cursing his lot in life. “And do something life affirming for once. Because this trying to kill yourself without actually doing the deed crap is getting old.”

 

I sputtered, “I’m not trying to – ”

 

My double didn’t even let me finish before replying. “Bullshit!”

 

He glared at me, the starry pits of his eyes flashing a deep crimson before he continued his furious retort. “You’re a moron but you’re not stupid. You’ve been throwing yourself on every dangerous mission you could get ahold of, the most dangerous, most bloody, and most stupid jobs that you can possibly join. Sure, you can write that off to everyone else as just wanting to do the right thing and save as many lives as you can, but I know better.”

 

“So what, I’m supposed to just let people fighting in my name die without at least trying to help?” I replied, grabbing a page of casualty statistics up from the table and brandishing it at my other. “There are people dying every day, people who believe that they’re dying for something by dying for me. People who believe that I’m a freaking god.”

 

“You are a god.” Replied my other. “Remember, you got the coronation and everything.”

 

“Don’t change the subject.” I snarled at my other.

 

“I’m not.” He replied, crossing his arms and standing firm as my eyes flashed at him. “You, Harry Dresden, are no longer human. You can throw yourself onto as many different suicidal missions as you want to but it will never make you into the human you once were. It’s only going to make you dead and not human. And rather than self-flagellating by throwing yourself into impossible battles so that you can feed the infuriating amount of survivor’s guilt you seem to feel after Lash’s death you could be the God King leading armies into battles that you’re actually capable of winning.”

 

“I’m not abandoning people to die on impossible battles without hope.” The paper crumpled in my hand as my fists balled hard enough to draw blood. “They deserve better.”

 

“You’re at war Harry, you don’t get the luxury of being the Martyr and a General – not if you want to win. So get down from the cross and face facts.” My other started counting off on his fingers. “You’ve been doing your best to keep to familiar things – trying to keep life as close to it was when you were human. Sure you upgraded your staff and gave yourself some new toys, but you’ve got an entire kingdom worth of resources to play with and you’ve spent most of the past year researching how to make as few changes to the timeline as are possible when you could be devoting that energy into finding a way to finish this war.”

 

“Paradox is sort of a bad idea.” I replied dryly.

 

“Sure, and if the changes that you were making affect Earth, it’s probably best not to go hog wild. But you’ve spent the past eight months essentially outside the realm of any possible butterflies affecting your path.” My other rolled his eyes. “Something tells me that you can make the world better in space without doing drastic damage to Chicago.”

 

“You do realize that we’re probably drastically affecting the timeline at the moment.” I replied. “Heading straight to Earth.”

 

“Sure,” My double agreed. “Because you’re a moron who let yourself get defeated.”

 

“I wasn’t going to risk killing the mortals.” I shook my head. “And I wasn’t going to kill a six year old.”

 

“Yeah… You hurting her really felt like it was on the table back there didn’t it?” Sarcasm dripped from my double’s voice. “The Winter Queen strong arms you into being at as specific place at a specific time while using your brothers’ life as leverage and you just walk in, in spite of believing that it’s a trap, and you just barrel on in as though this is business as usual. Even if it had been the Americans, that was a dumb fucking idea. You went in half cocked and lazy.”

 

“You think I should have waited longer? Delayed more? This is Thomas we’re talking about man. My brother, I’m not going to wait and see when it comes to saving it life. You want me to what? Just leave him to his fate.” I snorted. “Fat fucking chance.”

 

“Oh yea, because you’re of real fucking use to him trussed up and captured by Russian Special Forces.” My double rejoined. “You’re not looking at this objectively. How could you be? You’ve spent the past year effectively alone with only the Skull and Mab to know who you really are. It’s driving you a little bit insane.”

 

“You’re calling me crazy?” I balked at the suggestion.

 

My double paused for a moment before replying. “Harry, can you really seriously be defending the state of your mental health while arguing with a hallucination?”

 

Ok, I’ll admit that my double might have had a point there but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I’m not crazy.”

 

“Perhaps not irredeemably so but, you’re lonely and isolated.” My double replied. “You’ve spent your entire adult life building up protective layers of ritual and habit. You wear the same jacket. You live in the same apartment. You drive the same beat up car. You work in a job that is under-paid and over-worked because it fits in your image. You even go to the same restaurant whenever you go out, in spite of the fact that you know it’s terrible for you.”

 

“I like the paper hat.” I replied defensively, keenly aware of a year’s worth of Burger King cravings that I’d been unable to fulfil.

 

“You don’t even leave Chicago unless you absolutely have to. And no you have no real friends, no family, no pets, no history, and can’t even use your real name.” Replied my double. “I think that when the Winter Queen offered you a normal problem from your old life that you jumped at it. I think that you were so desperate for any connection to the man you once were that you willingly walked into a trap.” My double leaned down on the window sill next to me, staring out into the horizon. “I think that you chose to assume that you were capable of handling the situation because you’ve been fighting the same threats on a daily basis for the past year. You’ve gotten used to knowing what to expect, fallen into a routine of battling unchallenging foes.”

 

“Weren’t you the one who just suggested I was throwing myself at impossible odds in an attempt to kill myself?” I shook my head. “Getting kind of scattered there aren’t you?”

 

“I said that you were trying to kill yourself, not that you were doing an especially good job of it.” Replied my double. “Jaffa were hardly a threat to you, even before you ascended. And while Chronos has outsiders and Hydra in his ranks, there aren’t enough of them for him to commit them to every engagement. You’ve faced one, maybe two heavy hitters in four months. The last time you had a real threat against your life was before your coronation and you haven’t been without an armed retinue in nearly a year. Hell’s Bells Harry, you stopped consciously worrying about how many fairies were in your city three months ago. If that’s not suicidal I don’t know what is.”

 

“So which is it?” I snarked. “Do I have too much danger in my life or too little?”

 

He grinned at me. “You’re getting used to the monsters being on your side Harry. It makes you sloppy. It nearly made you dead. You being dead is bad – you’d take me with you.”

 

“Well as long as we have our priorities in order.” I replied in exasperation. “While I’m getting psychoanalyzed by you, why do you believe that I’m trying to kill myself?”

 

“Harry.” My other replied sadly. “Even you should be bright enough to know that without needing me to spell it out to you. You’ve said it yourself. People are dying for you. And you, Harry Dresden, cannot abide the idea of losing someone who loves you. Your whole “tortured misanthrope” schtick let you keep the number of people you lost to an absolute minimum, but now you’ve got planets worth of people who love you.”

 

My double put a hand on my shoulder, gripping it in a firm yet comforting gesture. “They are dying for you and you hate that you don’t think you deserve it. Never mind that yet another woman in your life has left you right after you’ve come to terms with the fact that she loves you.” He smiled lecherously. “And you actually let yourself love her back.”

 

I flinched at the reference to Lash and her dream visitation. The memory of that night was amazing, but I’d done my best not to dwell on it. The scrupulous absence of companionship in my mind had left me with an empty loneliness as painful as anything else I’d ever felt.

 

Was I really punishing myself for having survived Lash’s death? I wiped tears from the side of my face that I hadn’t even realized were falling as I replied. “She didn’t deserve to die.”

 

“Neither do you Harry.” Replied my other. “Cutting yourself off from the people who’ve let themselves into your life and love you for the things you’re doing as the “Lord Warden” won’t bring back your old life. Martyring yourself for your warriors won’t make you less guilty of having made yourself their god.”

 

“I don’t know if it matters.” I sighed. “I’ve pretty much gotten us killed already.”

 

“Enough with the emo crap.” Replied my double. “You’re not dead yet. Which mean’s we’re not dead yet. I mean, it’s the freaking Russians, they can’t be any harder to deal with than Vampire hordes or Jaffa Legions. Which means that you, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the god of freaking magic, are going to get your head out of your ass and find a way out of this situation. Muscle up and face your freaking problems man. You have allies counting on you, family too. If you’re not willing to do it for yourself do it for them.”

 

I refused to allow harm to come to Thomas. I didn’t like the idea of anything bad happening to Muminah. And even Ammit and Enlil were frenemies of a sort. “I’m not letting anyone hurt them.”

 

“Damn right. Now I’m sorry man, but this won’t be pleasant.” Replied my double as he winced at something. “If I’m honest, it’s really going to suck.”

 

I didn’t have time to ask exactly what was going to suck as an icy sensation subsumed me, coldness banishing my vision of my other self and waking me from my unconscious state. I sputtered and spat as I sat up, straining against the thick iron manacles binding me to a chair bolted down to the deck. A deluge of water washed down over me, frigid sea-water pouring out and over me from a fire hose. Russian sailors kept the spigot pointed at me, chattering orders and replies to each other over the thrumming “chug-thump” of the pump. Armed men carrying the air guns used to disable me offworld stood on either side of the pump, ready to disable me if necessary.

 

I squinted through the water, blinking it out of my eyes. I was wearing a jumpsuit of some kind, similar to those being worn by the Russian sailors only without the patches to denote rank and name. We were on a ship of some sort, an aircraft carrier judging by the fighter planes and helicopters just visible beyond a thick canvas barrier partitioning the hangar bay. Behind another set of doors and another canvas barrier to obscure it, I could just glimpse the outline of the Stargate. Even more armed Russians stood at the edge of the canvas barriers, these armed with conventional weapons – ostensibly to ensure that the only men who gained access to either me or the Stargate were those with a need to know.

 

Only a couple members of the Brute Squad were in the hangar bay with me, but their body language was relaxed. Apparently they were satisfied the threat I represented had been neutralized. On the other side of the hanger I caught sight of Archive and her bodyguard. They were presently engaged in conversation with an older man. A Russian Wizard of severe features and considerable age, even by the standards of the White Council. I’d never met him in person but I recognized him immediately as Simon Pietrovich, the White Council’s expert on Vampires.

 

I closed my eyes, drowning out the rushing sound of sea water and directing my attention to them. I tilted my head to them, and listened. It isn’t magic, anyone can do it really, but I’ve picked up a particular knack for filtering out excess noise. It wasn’t easy, but I caught the gist of their conversation.

 

Simon rolled one of the silver darts between his fingers. “And this works?”

 

“Quite effectively.” Replied the Archive. “The bloodstone is the key to all their abilities. Once introduced, the serum causes a disruption to it – effectively turning the magically conductive material against them. The greater the power of the Goa’uld, the more effective the serum is against them. It even disrupts wards infected with the stone, one merely needs coat the needle.”

 

“I will require as much as you can provide.” Replied the Wizard, his voice polite but demanding.

 

The Archive shook her head. “I have already given you as much as can be made till the next alignment. You have more than is required to subdue them till we get them to your sanctum – the room is prepared?”

 

“It is, though I still feel that an attempt to end his life should be made in the immediate.” Replied the Wizard.

 

“No.” Rejoined the Archive. “We can’t be sure how complete the ritual of ascension was. At best we’d be creating a truly powerful shade, at worst we’d be giving birth to a Skinwalker. He must be contained till the proper time. The Winter Queen was explicit in her warning that he cannot be slain before the proper moment three years hence or it will end in ruin.”

 

“I would advise refraining from discussing this further Ma’am.” Interjected Kincaid, his predatory eyes directed towards me. “The serum seems to have worn off.”

 

“A pity.” Ivy sighed. “I was hoping to avoid using more of the serum.” She looked to the Russians and spoke an order to them. Two abrupt hiss-thumps later, I was fading back to blackness but not before realizing one salient fact. Simon Petrovich and the Brute Squad were going to die soon, slain by the Vampire Courts before the war between Summer and Winter began. If I had my timeline straight, their demise was due to come to pass in the next day. And unless I figured something out soon, my companions, Ivy, and I were going to go down with them.

 

Just another day in the life of Harry Dresden.


	8. Chapter 8

I've been hung over before on more than a few occasions, especially in the weeks and months after Susan left me. I blacked out a couple of times when that happened, only to wake up to ear splitting pain. Hangovers hadn't bugged me much through my twenties, but as I got closer and closer to thirty a night of drinking became more of a commitment. It was the night of drinking followed by a day of recovery. I didn't drink to excess often, it was too dangerous for a Wizard to indulge and the sadness at Susan's departure had reduced to the degree that I didn't feel it was necessary.

 

I'd tried to get drunk after Lash died. It didn't take. Apparently "getting drunk" didn't come with the whole godhood package, or at least my variant of it. I was reasonably certain that there had been a number of the old pantheons famous for the habit. As a consequence, I was largely without a frame of reference when it came to describing a "god like hangover" but I was reasonably certain this qualified.

 

Ivy seemed to have decided to break out the extra strength stuff after my brief moment of consciousness on the carrier. I didn't "have" a hangover so much as I had "become" a hangover. My arms ached. My legs ached. My freaking hair ached. I was a whole summary of aches, pains and soreness that just happened to cohabitate headspace with one Harry Dresden. I was lying on the ground, bound in a metal-lined canvas straight-jacket overlaid with interwoven strips of linen marked with an intricate pattern of glowing hieroglyphs. I shifted up to a sitting position, the act of moving without the use of my arms made more awkward by the slickness of the floor beneath me.

 

I was sat atop a raised plinth, within the center of thirteen concentric circles made of different types of metal. I recognized the innermost ring as the light grey of Naquadah. There were runes, words of power, wards, and hieroglyphs from every system of belief with which I was acquainted and many more that were entirely alien to me. I did not recognize how the spell work interwove, exactly, but I was certain of what it was - a prison strong enough to hold a god. I tried to cross the threshold of the inner circle only for a physical barrier of magical power to prevent my movement. It was not painful to the touch, but entirely solid.

 

I reached out to my power, seeking my own well of strength only to find that it slipped through my fingers whenever I reached out to grab it. It wasn't like being within a set of Thorned Manacles, there was no pain preventing me from using my power. My power simply wasn't. Any attempt to access my own strength or the well of power from my mantle resulted in a sudden bright glow from the symbols wrapped around me.

 

I considered the matter briefly, reluctant to turn to my wizard's sight. Wizards have an innate ability. Call it the "true sight" or the "third eye" or whatever else floats your boat, but what it means is that you have the ability to see things as they truly are. It also means that you never have the ability to forget what you've seen. For all I knew, looking at how this prison worked could render me blind or insane.

 

Not knowing how it works could render me dead.

 

I groaned, activating my sight and observing the circles surrounding me. There was a simply astonishing light show of hovering motes of dancing light, wrapping around my platform in a complex dome of interconnected fibers of magical energy. It was, for all its apparent complexity, a simple enough idea. Put a physical barrier up on the inner ring with a series of increasingly unpleasant runes to discourage the occupant form trying to get past the external physical barrier. I didn't know what those inner runes did exactly, but I was certain it was capital "N" nasty.

 

What I couldn't understand was how they were powering the damn thing. Ritual circles required upkeep, the stronger the circle the more upkeep it required. Even beings of pure spirt generally required that the one ensnaring them within a circle keep direct line of sight to the being they are trapping. Spells to trap something made of flesh and bone as opposed to spirit and ectoplasm were even harder to maintain. It could possibly be powered by a regular ritual, probably something sacrificial, but it seemed unlikely. Animal sacrifice wasn't an efficient power source for ritual magic, even assuming that the White Council would go along with it, and human sacrifice would be off the table entirely - both for the Brute Squad and for Ivy.

 

But to ensnare a god would require godlike levels of power…. Which they had, didn't they? I sighed, looking down at how the symbols connected to the floor. I tried to summon my power and watched it seep down into the naquadah disk beneath my feet, spreading out to the runes around me. I marveled in the simplicity of it. The more power I expended the more thoroughly trapped I would be. I could exhaust myself trying to escape, burning more and more magical energy till I passed out, but it would just be re-directed against myself. The spell-work required was impossibly complex, but there wasn’t much that I could actually do against it while I was inside of the prison.

 

It would be laughably easy to break from outside the circle, of course, if anyone were able to disrupt any of the ritual items or symbols. The icons seemed to have been chosen to be those least likely to be disrupted by accident, but if any of the crystals or stone icons were to be so much as moved out of place it would potentially give me an opening.

 

Under other circumstances I would likely have been geeking out about the sheer audacity of creating something this complicated. I closed my wizard’s sight, looking around the space to see if there was anything or anyone that might be potentially enticed into making a favorable mistake.

 

None were forthcoming. Instead I was greeted by silence and the sunlight of a Russian summer, casting shimmering shades of color through the stained glass windows of Archangel. The tall images of Saints and Angels couldn’t help but feel vaguely mocking as they smiled down at me. I was not overly fond of the stabbing sensations that bright light were causing at the moment, nor the implicit insult that putting me under symbols of God were likely meant to represent. It just couldn’t help but feel like a calculated decision to rub salt into the wound of my defeat.

 

I squinted through the brightness and took in the space around my prison and realized that I was in the center of a richly furnished library. The walls were covered in books older than most countries and scrolls that wouldn’t have seemed greatly out of place in the Great Archives on Nekheb. I let out a long whistle as I looked up at the ceiling, examining the elaborate scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. If I really did end up stuck here for the next three years I wasn’t going to run out of stuff to keep me interested any time soon.

 

It was impressive to say the least. Obviously constructed before the fall of the Russian Aristocracy, it had somehow managed to survive the communist revolution with no obvious damage to the baroque architecture. But that was the privilege of being staffed by Wizards, I supposed, one got to miss out on trivial things like social revolution. I could have fit three football fields in the gilded marble space, with enough room to spare for a decent concessions area.

 

My prison was only one such prison, twelve identical circles set up at regular intervals around a tall wooden pillar marked with great deeds of Jesus Christ’s life. Two other circles were currently active, only one of which was occupied by a living being. My brow quirked in curiosity at the occupant. Easily over nine feet tall and covered in a thick mess of hair, he glared at me through beady eyes fixed within an unusually simian face. One of the Forest People? Where would they have even found him?

 

I’d had some contact with the Forest People before. I didn’t talk much about it with people, in part because it was poor form to discuss my clients and partly because nobody was going to believe that I’d met Bigfoot. Well, more accurately I was hired by “a bigfoot.” I wasn’t entirely sure how many of the Forest People there were, you didn’t find them unless they wanted you to. Strength of a River on His Shoulders had hired me to look after his son a couple of times. He was a good kid and I was fond of both Irwin and his father. They seemed like decent people.

 

River Shoulders always gave me a sense of serenity and grace, moving calculatingly as though he were afraid of what might happen if he were to act impetuously. He had a cautious deliberation to him that was actually comforting to be around. This guy, however, did not. He was like the nega-bigfoot. I wasn’t sure if it was just a side effect of having been trapped in the circle for too long, but something about how hungrily he was looking at me gave me the creeps. I’d seen Ammit look at people like that before, generally before I had to give her a lecture on why cannibalism was unnecessary for keeping good order and discipline.

 

His voice was harsh, a fetid anger in it as he addressed me. “You’re awake. I wondered if you would just die. The last one did, he tried so hard to get out that it killed him.” He grinned at the memory. “It didn’t last long, but I enjoyed it while it did. You’re less pathetic than I’d assumed.”

 

Not like River Shoulders at all then. I narrowed my eyes, looking the hairy beast from misshapen head to extremely shaggy toe and putting as much concerted effort as I could into broadcasting that I wasn’t impressed by his wall of muscle. This was my first day in the metaphorical prison yard, and I couldn’t afford to seem weak to the other inmates. I put an extra ounce of self-satisfaction into how I rounded the metallic reverberations into my throat in imitation of Enlil. “And you are more arrogant than one ought to be while trapped in a cage.”

 

“I’ve seen them come. They all come. They keep them till they can figure out how to kill them, and then they go. I’ve outlasted them all.” He paused for a moment, chewing his lip with a rotting tooth before spitting a black bit of ugly phlegm on the floor of his prison and thumbing in the direction of the circle that wasn’t apparently occupied. “Well everyone but that thing. But it doesn’t do much other than just be there.”

 

The remaining circle contained a simple iron cooking pot bound with chords of interwoven silver and what seemed to be a long braid of woman’s hair. The bigfoot snorted, “Not very talkative, but it was here first. Not a peep in two hundred years of living together, I wouldn’t waste time trying.”

 

“You’ve been here for two hundred years?” I blanched. “In that spot? Without letting you move?”

 

“They’ve got us here to kill us. Comfort isn’t exactly a priority.” Replied the Bigfoot. “Once they figure out how to kill you they’ll do it to you as well.”

 

The sheer existential horror of being trapped in place for three years without food or drink or even being able to lay down to sleep was nightmarish. It had been a long time since I’d felt hungry, thirsty, or actually needed to sleep – those were now indulgences rather than necessities – but I found them to be crucial acts to ground me to my own humanity. I didn’t require food for sustenance or sleep for fear of falling unconscious, but I couldn’t taste if I didn’t eat and couldn’t dream if I didn’t sleep. I didn’t know if I’d be able to go two weeks without going mad let alone three years.

 

Not that three years seemed likely overly likely given what was due to happen over the next couple hours – but wow, that was messed up even if it didn’t violate one of the Laws of Magic to accomplish it.

 

I was reasonably certain that I would have the opportunity to escape in the chaos once the Red Court invaded, I didn’t think that the timeline had altered enough that the fall of Archangel had been averted. I could, I supposed, warn the Brute Squad of their impending doom in the hopes that I might save them along with the White Council’s foremost expert on fighting vampires. With them in still on the Council’s side it might be enough to stop the war before it even started.

 

But assuming that I was even willing to risk the possibility of unmaking a portion of realty through the near inevitable paradox that would be the result of giving a warning to avert the approaching disaster, it would eventually beg the question of how I came to knew the Red Court was due to invade. It would be assumed that I was involved, or at least complicit in allowing, the attack. The Red Court had been present at my coronation, and though there had been no emissaries between our nations since it was widely assumed by the galaxy that I held some sway over the Red Court. Some of the wilder oral traditions of Nekheb claimed that I was able to bend vampires entirely to my will – that I’d given some of them the power of the gods.

 

No, I would bide my time. An opportunity would soon arise to escape in the chaos of an invading Vampire army, I just needed to be sure to exploit it when the moment arose. In the meanwhile I just needed to stay alive and alert. Once I escaped, it would become an entirely different ballgame. I would be risking life and limb to save my companions. The most immediate threat to both of which was standing right in front of me – unless, I supposed, he could be turned into an advantage.

 

I looked at the Bigfoot, considering my options. “I would have your name.”

 

It snorted. “And why should I give it to you?”

 

“Because I’m going to offer you the opportunity to escape.” I replied. “And I don’t intend to do that until we’ve been properly introduced.”

 

The Bigfoot laughed, it was a harsh sound that grated against the back of my teeth, setting my stomach against me. “You aren’t the first to have offered me something like that. I’ll give you the same counter offer I gave them. I promise to kill you, slowly.” It grinned, exposing its blackened gums. “And eat your body after.”

 

“I’m offering you freedom.” I growled, my eyes flashing. “The two of us working together have a better chance of getting out of here alive.”

 

The Bigfoot’s laughter continued unabated as he wiped tears of cruel mirth from the corners of his eyes. “You are standing in that circle. Do you not think I know what that means? Do you think I don’t know why I’m here? Do you think I don’t know what sort of creatures end up in these circles? I’ve seen the things they bring into these circles. I’ve seen centuries worth of them. I am them.” He made a gurgling noise near ecstasy as he mimed crushing something between his fists. “I know how we think, little god, and I know the worth of your people’s word. I remember your people’s time, and their fall. If they bothered to go up and grab one of you – then I’d be an idiot to do anything that benefits you.”

 

Not an advantage then. I was really going to need my circle to end up broken before his.

 

“Smile foolish god.” Replied the bigfoot. “We have visitors.”

 

The doors to the library yawed open, clear sunlight piercing the prismatic shimmering patters of stained glass. Candles flickered to life around the library with a subtle rush of invocation as the Wizard Pietrovich entered the library. The man’s black leather shoes clicked across the tile floor, walking through the interlocking patters of blue and white marked with three foot wide gilded circles. He seemed almost bored by the presence of magical prisons as he grabbed a chair from the wall, dragging it in front of my prison. He sat upon it, pulling out a moleskin notebook and a silver fountain pen from the jacket of his charcoal grey suit as he did so.

 

He made an attempt to address me in the language of the Goa’uld, managing to mangle both grammar and syntax beyond any credible recognition. It was even worse than my early attempts at Latin, which was saying something given that I’d been studying via correspondence courses. I got the sense that he’d never had cause to interact with it in anything but a written format and had made a best-guess-estimation at the language. If it was a calculated attempt at intimidation, it had failed spectacularly.

 

Lash’s gift for words came in useful once again as the rolling sylalbles and soporific tones of Russian escaped my lips. “I think, perhaps, that it will be less painful for both of us if we don’t rely upon your command of the Goa’uld tongue Wizard Pietrovich. Or would you prefer that I called you Simon?”

 

Simon Pietrovich stiffened in his chair. If someone knew the true name of a Wizard, complete with the intonation and intention that they put behind it, they could do some pretty horrific things. I had not invoked his name, even if I’d been able to cast out of the circle I didn’t actually know it – not in the proper way to actually use it for anything other than casual conversation – but I’d been in the supernatural world long enough to know just how disconcerting it was to have something big and scary know who you are. Given how he’d had the audacity to send people to ambush me, I felt like a little bit of reciprocity wasn’t out of the question.

 

He didn’t show any overt discomfort, his voice studiously unaffected by my use of his name, but I knew that it had surprised him. “I had not realized that you were conversant in Russian.”

 

“And I hadn’t realized that you were stupid.” I replied. “Senior Council members are generally smart enough not to start wars with powers who haven’t offered them any apparent insult.”

 

“You broke the curse laid upon your bloodline.” Replied Pietrovich. “That is not a Council matter and it cannot be allowed. Even if I were looking to involve the rest of the Council, you have stolen one of our own. You flaunt his corpse and cowl, war was declared long before I chose to end the conflict. They would not blink if I told them even a shadow of why you cannot be allowed to live. The Council would not allow a man possessing a body of knowledge so dangerous that its mere scraps and abandoned notes produced the monster Heinrich Kemmler.”

 

“I don’t suppose that you’d be willing to believe that I am not your enemy?” I replied.

 

“The Archive has verified your identity to my satisfaction and clarified the necessity for your undoing. I have learned not to question the head of the order.” Pietrovich replied. “It’s funny really. I wonder if I had been able to steal the pet spirit of Kemmler if it would have betrayed its maker as utterly as the Archive has turned itself against your life’s work.”

 

“I have to wonder why you’re talking to me at all then.” My lip twitched in irritation as one of the ensorcelled wrappings rubbed uncomfortably against a day’s worth of stubble. “If you’re just planning on killing me without even trying to listen to anything I have to say.”

 

“I am curious.” Pietrovich replied, a hungry look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite place. “I have never spoken to someone who was a man before he became a god. If you would prefer to spend the next three years languishing in silence – that is also an option.” He looked at the bigfoot. “I don’t imagine that you’ll greatly enjoy the quality of your company.”

 

The bigfoot suggested something anatomically improbable in response. Simon’s lip curled in enjoyment. “One day, creature, your time will come. It might take centuries to bleed you enough that you are reduced to mortality, but it will come.”

 

He turned to me. “You, of course, will not wait quite so long. Your demise will come much sooner, I fear.”

 

“You can’t be serious.” I said in deadpan disappointment.

 

“I am deadly serious, Lord Warden.” Replied Wizard Pietrovich.

 

“Do you realize how freaking cartoonish it is for someone to make threats that overblown in that accent?” I replied. “You sound like a Bond Villain – and not one of the good ones. What was the name of the guy from Goldeneye? The one who kept talking about how invincible he was?”

 

“Boris.” Replied an all too familiar voice from the door as the eldest son of house Raith, my freaking brother, walked into the library. He was dressed more appropriately for a drunken rave that for… well, basically anything else. His tight leather pants and mesh shirt managed to show off the impressive array of muscles that it always galled me that he didn’t have to work out to maintain. His face was worked into the eternal expression of vapidity that he’d maintained for most of his life before I’d met him – a defensive precaution to protect himself against his father’s tendency to kill any son who demonstrated either competence or initiative. He apparently had at least enough initiative to have learned Russian and not bothered to inform me of that fact, given that he was addressing me in it. “And I liked that movie.”

 

I hadn’t seen a look of hate as pronounced as the one on Wizard Pietrovich’s face at the interruption to whatever he’d been planning to discuss with me. It was the sort of face I might have pulled if someone suggested putting my dog to sleep because walking him was too much work. I didn’t know if I blamed him either. It wasn’t clear if he’d just put less effort into the act when he’d first met me, or if I just remembered his façade more fondly through the lens of memory and fraternal love, but Thomas was a lot more irritating than I recalled.

 

Pietrovich ’s eye began to twitch, clearly steeling himself to have to interact with the foppish incubus. Even I had to remind myself that his incompetence was an act as he glided over to Pietrovich with a silly grin on his face. “He’s rather pretty with all those stars in his eyes. It’s like looking at a human planetarium.”

 

“Raith.” The Wizard replied. “How are you here without an escort?”

 

“You mean those two guys who kept following me? I just assumed that they were there to clean up after me. They’re right behind, you know.” Thomas replied, his face scrupulously blank of any relevant thought. “I mean they weren’t very good at escorting. I was hardly walking fast at all.”

 

The escorts in question entered the room soon after that pronouncement, red-faced and panting. Thomas had very clearly sprinted ahead of his guard using his enhanced speed, taking care to run just slow enough that they’d be able to keep up and no accusations could be leveled that he was trying to escape them. It was the sort of calculated insult that the White Court loved. “You see, right there.”

 

Pietrovich held up a finger to silence the two Brute Squad Wardens that tried to explain themselves, unwilling to engage in any admonition of inability in front of the vampire. His hard expression told me that they were in for the ass chewing of their lives later. “Raith, your presence in this hall is tolerated because the Archive has vouched for your necessity and your relevance to the order. But do not continue to try my patience, the laws of hospitality only extend so far.”

 

“And you’ve been incredibly hospitable.” Replied Thomas. “But I thought you’d want to know about the Russian.”

 

“We’re all Russian here.” Pietrovich snarled through clenched teeth, clenching the fountain pen so hard I was certain that it was in danger of snapping in half.

 

“The Russian Colonel, I mean.” Thomas tapped his alabaster finger against pale lips. “Oh what was his name? Zukka, Zukak, Zunwalt?”

 

“Colonel Zhukov?” Replied the Wizard.

 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Well it turns out that he’s not thrilled that he can’t just take the other three till the Archive is sure that they’re not going to require more permanent solutions. Apparently he promised some big wigs that they’d be able to interrogate them – or dissect them or something. It was sort of unclear, his accent got kind of harder to understand, angrier he got.” Thomas shrugged his shoulders. “The Archive thought you’d be able to calm him down. Apparently getting orders from a six year old girl and a room full of foreigners in grey cloaks isn’t doing much to help his temper.”

 

“Ungrateful little… if not for our intervention they would still be taking orders from a President who was little more than a puppet of the Vampire Courts. He will wait a day, a week or a year if necessary.” Pietrovich pocketed the pen and moleskin, rising from the chair.

 

“Yeah, dad was pissed about that.” Thomas’ genuine smile broke through his façade of ineptitude. “He thought he had that one in the bag.”

 

“His successor is more agreeable.” Pietrovich glared at the vampire, seemingly trying to will my brother out of existence. He waited at the door, clearly expecting Thomas to follow.

 

“I thought I’d check out the library, see what there is to see.” Thomas replied innocently.

 

“You will not be left unattended in this space.” Pietrovich shook his head twice in a violent denial of the very possibility. “Nor allowed access to the books within it.”

 

“Certainly as a guest you would not deny me the magnificent view?” Thomas purred, indicating the magnificent array of paintings and decoration. “That is well within the acceptable remit of what a guest might request of their host.”

 

Pietrovich rolled his eyes skyward, looking up to a stained glass portrait of Jesus on the Cross as though actively praying for the clarity of mind not to just kill the incubus before him. He exhaled twice before speaking. “Reveal yourselves.”

 

Ten wizards who had been beneath veils appeared within the space, standing around my brother at regular intervals with swords drawn. Thomas didn’t flinch, not exactly, but he got very, very still. The sort of frozen momentum that humans can’t quite do. His obvious escort had apparently been a distraction, something to lull him into complacency while his real escort kept him under constant threat of annihilation.

 

Pietrovich smiled as he spoke a second command. “Return.”

 

The wizards vanished in another instant. Wizard Pietrovich smiled, “You may, of course observe the art within the library. You will not, however, act in any way that would be interpreted as dangerous to our cause. You will not touch any books or ritual implements, nor will you attempt to access either. And in future, I would not presume that you are as clever as you believe yourself to be. I will see to the Colonel’s frustrations.”

 

As the doors closed behind Wizard Pietrovich, leaving my brother alone with his veritable legion of escorts, he elected to do the single thing that he could accomplish to insult the Wizard without breaking his rules. Namely, he grabbed Simon’s chair, flipped it backwards so that he could cross his arms over it, and sat down in it facing me with a wide grin as he asked. “So are you more of a Roger Moore kind of evil god or a Sean Connery kind of evil god?”


	9. Chapter 9

I didn't have much in the way of family - Thomas was my only living relative, and I knew that he'd spent the majority of his life trapped in the machinations of the White Court. He'd lived day to day through catspaws and feints, maintaining the illusion of his own foppish incompetence while trying to maneuver the White Court towards the downfall of his monstrous progenitor. I had run through what meeting my brother might be like a million times since the night of my coronation, imagined flying down into Chicago in a space ship and freeing him from living in fear of his father, the White King. It had mostly been an idle thing, I was too terrified of paradox to risk actually doing it, but the image of appearing on the lawn of Chateau Raith with a small army of Jaffa to put the hurt on Thomas' violent, manipulative, incestuous, rapist, dickhead of a father was a common fantasy of mine.

But the fantasy always sort of fell apart when it came time to talk to him. What possible combination of words could I say to him that would explain what was going on? Would he even be willing to deal with a man who'd done the things that I'd been forced to do over the past year. I'd killed men. I'd killed lots of men. I'd even liked doing it to some of them. And I didn't know which possible reaction terrified me more, him rejecting the monster I'd become or him embracing it entirely.

Thomas, like all vampires of the White Court, was a killer. I loved him dearly. He was my blood. He was the most important person in the world to me. But Thomas was a murderer, like all Incubus of the White Court. He hadn't known that he was going to kill his first partner, the vampires of the White Court didn't warn their young of the danger until after they managed to devour their first sexual conquest, but without question he had done so. And while he'd done his best to feed responsibly in the time since I'd known him, there was always that potential for darkness haunting him - the desire to give in to his demon and feed indiscriminately upon mortals.

In a very real way I'd been his link to his own humanity, the person who he used to anchor himself against the urges of his demon. If he embraced me now, as the creature I had become and in knowledge of all it implied, he would be anchored not to the mortal man who'd always tried to do the right thing but instead to the fledgling god who'd devoured another thinking being to survive. I didn't care to consider what effect that knowledge might have upon Thomas - what choices he might feel were justified in context with that. I knew how it affected me, and I didn't have the burden of Thomas' hunger.

I took care not to look directly into Thomas' eyes as we spoke, I was reasonably confident that we couldn't actually initiate a soul gaze given that I'd already looked into Thomas' eyes in my past, his future, but I didn't dare risk seeing into my brother's soul before the appointed place and time. My mother had left both of us a message in our souls, a way to confirm that we were who we claimed to be if ever we met. If I triggered that before Thomas brought me to see my mother's portrait in Chateau Raith my past self might never believe his story, and I might lose my half-brother from my life out of a stubborn and bull-headed refusal to accept his identity. It was easy to avoid - Thomas was in no hurry to look into the soul of anything that needed to be kept in the Brute Squad's equivalent of supermax.

Thomas didn't actually want to talk to me, he just wanted to do something that was both annoying to Pietrovich and not an actual violation of his rules. That was why he'd asked me a question he didn't expect me to be able to answer, intentionally using pop-culture references and jokes in an apparent attempt to frustrate both me and my captors. And while I might have been the Lord Warden Dre'su'den the Ha'ri for a year, I'd been Harry Dresden for my entire life. I was not going to be outdone in any game of words created for the specific purpose of annoying the Wardens.

I smiled widely and gave the only real answer to that question. "Sean Connery of course. Always go with Scotland."

Thomas tilted his head in surprise. "You've watched James Bond?"

"Most of them." I replied. "There were a couple that I didn't quite get through. That whole Dalton plot line with the Cocaine dealers annoyed me and I couldn't stand the one with the News Agency that was causing disasters so they could report on them."

"I didn't know that gods regularly indulged in contemporary cinema. You seem like you'd stand out in a theater." My brother laughed. "It seems a bit out of line with the whole 'dominion over mortals' shtick."

"What? I can't have hobbies?" I shrugged. "I generally prefer to read the book, but going to movies is fun. Get some popcorn and a soda, and it's a night worth of fun."

"Mr. Raith." One of the Brute Squad wizards who wasn't veiled interrupted our conversation. He spoke in a rough voice, gravely as though he smoked a great deal. "I must caution you against speaking to the prisoner. He has a reputation for being slippery with his words."

"The Archive was explicit that his powers would not escape the circle." Thomas replied.

"He is extremely dangerous, Mr. Raith." Interjected the wizard. He wrapped his hand around the hilt of his enchanted blade reflexively, finding comfort in the presence of his weapon. "Even without magic, it's best not to listen to the things we keep here. They say things sometimes - terrible things, true things. Wise men do not speak to them."

My brother mirrored an expression of innocent bafflement, as though he were too dim to understand the wizard's implication. He indulged fully in his mask of foppish incompetence. "But he seems just so friendly."

The wizard closed his eyes and counted to five, clearly praying for patience, before replying to Thomas. "Yes, Mr. Raith. I know he seems pleasant."

"So why shouldn't I speak to him?" Thomas asked, his face the utter picture of innocence. "We both like movies after all, and I'm painfully bored. This is the first real diversion I've had since getting here."

The man's body quivered with rage, clearly dying to shout some variation of the phrase "because he's an evil immortal demon god you blithering idiot" but choking it down in light of the rules of hospitality. The rules of Host and Guest were serious business in the supernatural world, and one only violated them at their own peril. I had actually started the war with the Red Court with one such faux pas. Verbally insulting one’s guest likely wouldn't incur a serious retribution, but Thomas wasn't going to let something like that pass without abusing it in his own favor. So, in spite of clearly thinking that Thomas was barely smart enough to feed himself unaided, the wizard replied in a voice of forced patience. "He's a god of magic Mr. Raith. Until we know how to kill him I'm not taking anything for granted."

Thomas laughed. "I'm not going to cower from some forgotten deity trapped in a circle like a bug in a glass." He pointed to the bigfoot. "Especially given how it seems to have kept tiny over there in check without too much trouble."

"I'm going to eat you little phage." Replied the bigfoot. "I'm going to eat you and use your ribs to pick my teeth."

"Nice to meet you too tiny," My brother dismissed the creature from his mind as quickly as the beast had entered it, pointing from the bigfoot to me. "And he's just so much smaller than Tiny is."

I snorted in amusement at the bigfoot's apoplectic rage at having been dismissed so utterly. "Hey, big things come in small packages."

"I wouldn't be so quick to declare your small package there Darth Warden." My brother jabbed back. "People might start getting the wrong idea."

"That is Doctor Darth Warden to you, Raith." I replied. "I worked hard for that title and I will be addressed as such."

"You see? Even the bad guy has a better sense of humor about this than you do, and we're trying to kill him." Thomas put his hand over his face in an exaggerated stage whisper towards me. "Oh, sorry. I hope that wasn't a surprise. You're here for us to kill you. Sorry if that ruins your day. well, no. not really. But it's polite to say stuff like that."

"Mr. Raith, please stop provoking the dark god of sorcery." Begged the wizard.

Thomas never got out his snarky reply to that. The floor shook, casting me painfully against the transparent barrier of my prison as a screeching howl of warning sirens sounded across the compound. Without the benefit of being able to move my arms, my face hit the transparent wall with the full weight of my body - leaving me dizzyingly concussed. Thomas managed to stay in his seat as the floor rumbled, but he'd gripped the arms of his chair with sufficient force to crack the arms.

"We're under attack." The Wizard swore, turning his back to me and facing the only entrance to the library. "That alarm means that someone breached the tower's outer defenses."

"That's not possible Dominic," Replied the other unveiled wizard, her voice painfully overconfident in context with the dangers I knew to be coming. "Pietrovich set the wards himself. Nobody could break through those without taking horrific casualties. If they actually tripped that alarm they're probably just smears on the property line."

There was a rumbling sound of thunder as the cheery sunlight that had been streaming in through the stained glass melted into a grey-black morass of storm-clouds. A tempest too sudden and too dark have been brought on by any natural pattern of weather suddenly pelted the windows with rain and hail, booming cracks of sorcerous lightning setting my teeth on edge with their crimson glow. The Red Court had summoned a storm to allow them to assault Archangel in the light of day when the Wizards were least expecting it.

I cringed. It was one thing to intellectually reconcile myself with not affecting the past. It was another thing entirely to watch the consequences of not preparing the Brute Squad for what was coming. These were people, living breathing people with hopes and dreams. The overconfident woman was a young woman who didn't even look old enough to drink, let alone fight in a war. And while her companion seemed to understand the danger, how many other young Wizards would be similarly convinced of their own invincibility? How many were too confident in Pietrovich's ability to ward off any dangers with the magic he'd tied to this fortress?

These idiots had already wasted seconds dilly dallying around waiting to find out if this was some sort of false alarm. Had we truly been this arrogantly convinced of our own superiority in the early days of the war? These people were going to get themselves killed by virtue of pure arrogant confidence in their own wards.

If they were relying upon the wards to slow the advancing vampires, their strategies were going to be woefully ineffective. I remembered this attack. The Wardens didn't know anything for sure, but their leading theory was that someone on the inside let the Vampires in past Pietrovich's wards. It wouldn't take them long to realize that the attack was real, but might be long enough for a Red Court warrior to injure or kill my brother in the crossfire.

Screw it, the Brute Squad already thought I was a dark god. I might as well play off that assumption. I closed my eyes and started speaking in angry nonsense syllables, hamming it up with my metallic voice before opening my eyes as wide as I could make them go. I was pleased to discover that the spell work robbing me of my ability to use magic did not affect the natural bioluminescent eyes of the Goa'uld. The warden's snapped around to focus on me as I made my eyes glow, their faces growing worried as I spoke in a voice of command. "The Red Court does not agree with your assessment, Wizard, and are coming to provide you with an object lesson in the dangers of arrogance."

"Why should I believe you, 'Warden?" Snarled the female wizard.

"I'm trapped in a cage, unable to defend myself." I replied, listening as the sounds of battle drew closer and closer to the great library. "You can either fight off the threat that's going to get us both killed when it shows up, or you can focus on me and give the court the opportunity to devour us, your choice."

"He's not lying. I can smell them." Thomas stood up from the chair, his face contorted into an expression of disgust. "Red Court Vampires - Black Court too.”

“Damn it.” Replied the wizard. “Defensive positions. The prisoners must not escape!”

“Yes, Wizard Dominic.” Replied the female wizard as she pulled her blade from its scabbard. The sword shimmered with etheric energies as she did so, small bolts of lightning kissing the cold steel whipped forth. The veils of the hidden wizards shimmered and flickered, illusionary spell work briefly disrupted as they pulled out their own enchanted weaponry.

Wizard Dominic walked over to the library doors and placed his hands upon them, muttering incantations under his breath. The elaborate baroque artistry of the door shimmered with a flickering spidery pattern of green and blue energies, wards. I recognized them immediately, even without having looked at them with my wizard’s sight. I’d seen wards like those, exactly like those, a thousand times before. I now understood why the White Council had been so quick to suggest that I’d been responsible for bringing them down when first I’d found out about the fall of Archangel. My own protective wards back on my apartment door in Chicago had been almost a mirror image of what Wizard Dominic was activating. It made sense I supposed. Wizard Pietrovich had, after all, been the mentor to my own personal Palpatine – Justin DuMorne. While that boded well for my prospects at escape, it boded ill for the defense of this room.

If there was one thing that my experience fighting the Kemmlerites over Halloween had taught me, it was how myopic the defensive structure my mentor had taught me could be. I looked up and around the room as shadows flitted across the colored patters of light dancing across the floor, confirming my suspicions as I shouted. “They’re not going for the door! Look up! Look up!”

It was only a moment’s notice, but it at least allowed the Wizards a hair’s breadth of warning before the stained glass shattered inward casting knife-sharp daggers of multicolored glass down upon them. Some of them were quick enough to raise their shields. Some, but not all. Those too slow or too focused upon the warded doors were pelted with the razor-like rain of shrapnel. Paired with the swirling winds and pelting hail, it provided an immaculate distraction for the vampires as they descended upon us.

Black Court Vampires are your standard Bram Stoker types. Weak to wooden stakes, sunlight, fire, garlic, and holy symbols – there aren’t many of them left since “Dracula” was published and “how to kill black court vampires 101” became part of the common cultural knowledge of the world. Unfortunately, those who’ve managed to survive since that stuff became common knowledge tended to be the ones smart enough and dangerous enough to keep on living in spite of that. And the black court vampires, minus their specific weaknesses, were scary strong, scary fast, scary durable and just downright scary when it came to combat.

They glided down from the air, fifty strong desiccated corpses worth of dark magic and furious hunger, and launched themselves into the wizards. Claw and fang met blade and spell in the library as the vampires of the Black Court attacked the Brute Squad wizards. Thomas pulled a pistol from the corpse of a dead Wizard, a WWII Luger, and put a bullet into the head of a Black Court Vampire as it charged him. My brother couldn’t afford for any of the Vampires to survive, one of them might report back to his father than he’d been here. And if Thomas couldn’t afford it, neither could I.

I struggled with my bonds, trying to force my way out of them with sheers strength rather than magical power. My blood boiled as I listened to the Bigfoot’s pleased cackle at the violence unfolding around us, his sheer ecstasy at watching his captors trapped in a life or death struggle was galling. There was a wild look in his eye. It was a madness that told me that were he to be free, he would happily slaughter everyone in sight. I shuddered as I watched a Wizard’s head ripped in half by a vampire’s talons, his now eyeless husk of a mouth opening and closing in horror as the corpse dropped to the ground.

“A chance will open,” I reminded myself as I watched my brother’s eyes flash silver, his demon granting him the strength to pull a Vampire from one of the Brute Squad. “Just wait for a chance to open.”

It was two full minutes of horrifying slaughter till it did, in the worst way possible. One of the vampires bit into a Wizard’s neck, slaying him and unleashing the man’s death curse. A horrible pulse of flaming green energy ricocheted from vampire to vampire, setting the five nearest creatures ablaze with eldritch energies that peeled the flesh from their bones and boiled the marrow. Four of the five died nearly instantly but the fifth vampire, an apparently older and more powerful creature, flailed around mustering a counter spell. He summoned a glowing ball in the palm of his hand as the flames consumed him, sucking the vitriolic blaze into it. Though it was insufficient to save him, it quite effectively concentrated the spell into a single point of focus so that when he died the offensive spell was honed into a beam of pure spite. It collided with the wooden pillar depicting the life of Jesus, ensorcelled flames charring away the Christian messiah’s image from totemic icon and scourging the keystone into charcoal.

In an instant the barrier separating me from the rest of the room was no more and I felt the muggy heat of the ensorcelled tempest, I gasped with relief as I stepped off the bloodstone disk and felt my magic once again within my grasp. My arms were bound to my sides, but I could actually do something.

Unfortunately, so could the bigfoot. The first thing I felt after the sensation of recovering my magic was the impact of a massive fist into my ribcage and a sudden impact as I flew across the room and into one of the bookshelves. Ancient tomes toppled down onto my bound form as I stood up groggily and tried to liberate myself from my bonds as a Black Court Vampire slashed at me with his razor-sharp finger tips, drawing blood from my shoulder as he did so. I moved back from his slash, shimmying out of the confining garment where he’d cut it, as the vampire instinctively licked his fingers.

There was a moment of shock as the vampire tasted the blood of his hand, his desiccated blue-black tongue coming into contact with the inky fluid. His expression was outright orgasmic as the milky white cataracts over his corneas shimmered, taking on a vibrant shade of pale green before reverting to the desiccated cataracts they had once been. His skin likewise took on a more vibrant pink, seeming to revert from its prior desiccation in an instant before reverting to the hollow husk of a Black Court Vampire.

He froze, looking from me, to the blood on his long fingernails, and back. His face took on a hungry expression beyond anything I’d ever seen on a vampire before, even in the fit of a blood rage, and he charged me with utter abandon, his jaw unhinged like that of a serpent. I managed to pull my hand from the straight jacket, holding it up in the vampire’s path as I bellowed “Fuego” at the top of my voice.

A pillar of silver-white flames erupted from my outstretched hand, consuming the vampire utterly. He continued flying through the air, impacting with me as a mess of ash as I rolled to the side avoiding the massive hairy foot that crashed into the place I’d been only seconds before. The bigfoot was grinning hungrily, the madness in his eyes in full bloom as he cackled in horrible joy. I wasn’t even sure if he was entirely aware of who he was fighting or why he was fighting them. The monstrous Forest Person was excising hundreds of years’ worth of solitary confinement upon all those foolish enough to wander into line of sight. His hands were already wet with the blood of a Brute Squad wizard, whose crumpled body the bigfoot was using as an improvised cudgel upon wizard and vampire alike.

I suspect that he would gladly have smashed me with another kick had a wizard’s blade not found the small of his back, ensorcelled blade piercing him from spine to belly as the bearer pulled out and to the left. Suffice it to say, it did not work. In retrospect, it should probably have been a tell that the creature had been kept in confinement for the past several centuries. It turned around to face its attacker even as it’s innards knit themselves back together, grabbing the wizard’s head with massive fists and squeezing as hard as it could. The wizard’s head burst under the pressure, spreading blood and viscera across the room.

The creature rounded on me, clearly intent upon doing me grievous bodily harm, when something odd happened. It fell to its knees, gasping. Its eyes bulged as it vomited out a stream of serpents that slithered across the ground and up his body, biting at every scrap of skin they could get to. Asps, cobras, and rattlesnakes, it seemed as though a new type of venomous serpent was spewing from his mouth with every agonized regurgitation. I scooted back across the floor, eager to avoid becoming collateral damage to one of the more inventive death curses I’d yet seen. I wasn’t sure if either suffocation or snake bites were going to kill one of the Forest People, but they seemed to be a more than adequate distraction.

I ripped off the straight jacket and became painfully aware that I hadn’t been wearing anything beneath it as I hopped over shards of glass, taking care not to slice open my feet as I hugged the wall to get to the decapitated corpse of a black court vampire. I cast aside a charging black court vampire with a yell of Forzare as I bent down, stealing the corpse’s shoes. They were a size too large and smelled of god knows how many years of rot, but they would at least be something between my feet and the shards of glass littering the ground.

I spun my body up and away from a wizard’s blade with a gust of summoned wind, falling awkwardly as the ensorcelled blade broke control of my magical gust of wind. I landed just shy of where he’d swung downward with his blade, and grabbed him by the shoulders. Using his momentum, I drove his face down into my knee. Not hard enough to kill him but hard enough to discourage him from trying anything like that until he caught his bearings.

It was then that I realized my brother was in front of me, pointing the Luger directly at my forehead. I arched an eyebrow. “Really Thomas? You’re going to try to shoot me? You think if it was that easy that the Archive wouldn’t just have done it while I was unconscious?”

“It’s a matter of principle.” Replied the Incubus, smiling at me with a roguish gleam in his glowing silver eyes as he lowered the pistol and advanced on me, a sultry, smoky lilt entering his voice – something between whiskey and quicksilver. “And a distraction to keep you talking for long enough that it sets in.”

And then a wave of thoughts and feelings hit me that no living man should ever even begin to feel about his freaking half-brother. They were indistinct, ephemeral things. It was more like hearing the idle musings of someone in another room than having a fully formed thought on your own but I got the distinct image of Thomas and I interacting with each other in a way that was most decidedly not fraternal love between brothers. I gagged in disgust as I realized that Thomas was trying, and apparently failing, to hit me with the full on White Court whammy. I’d seen it once before when his half-sister Lara had begun to feed on the White King, Thomas was allowing his demon out fully in the hopes of consuming my will.

I let my brother get in close enough to try and kiss me before I sucker punched him in the gut. In my anger, I didn’t pull my punch either – hitting him with enough force that it probably cracked a couple ribs. It was petty, but there were some things you just didn’t do to family even if you didn’t know that they are family. He staggered back from me in shock, looking down at impression my fist had left upon his belly. His skin curled and peeled where I’d touched him, the outline of my fist seared into the flesh though the black mesh of his shirt.

“Thomas Raith.” My voice shouldered with anger and I did something that I would never have considered myself capable of prior to that day. I used a measure of power as I spoke his full name, using the exact intonation and intention behind it that I’d learned when he’d first given it to me. “You will cease this rudeness.”

Using someone’s name, their true name freely given to you, is a powerful brand of magic in and of itself. For more spiritual entities it allows you to summon them or banish them at will. For more corporeal entities while the applications of one’s true name are not necessarily as showy, they are no less powerful. A White Council Wizard can do some pretty nasty things with someone’s true name if they want to, and I was a league beyond where I’d been to gain membership on the council. When I put power behind his name, he knew it instantly.

I remembered how unsettling it had been when the Dragon Ferrovax invoked my name at Bianca’s party but judging by how Thomas actually dropped to his knees in pain, I suspected I’d put a little bit more mustard behind my invocation than Ferrovax had used on me. Well, that was fine with me. I’d just been a bit insouciant with the ancient being – I hadn’t tried to get in his pants.

“Empty Night!” Thomas swore catching is breath and looking up at me. “Who are you?”

“Someone your mother knew.” I replied, casting a vampire away from me with a discharge of telekinetic energy. “Someone she cared about greatly Thomas.” I invoked his name again, causing him to devolve into another fit of swearing. “Someone Margaret would have been greatly troubled to discover that you’d treated so offensively.”

“You knew my mother?” Thomas looked up at me in shock. “How? Why?”

“How do you think I know who you are? Margaret LeFay told me. She told me that I am responsible to your welfare.” I replied. It actually had been my mother, or rather a vision of her implanted in my brother’s soul, so wasn’t lying so much as I was creatively applying truth. I was really spending far too much time with my Godmother.

I blinked as a thought hit me. My mother was the sort of woman who traded favors with the Lenansidhe to ensure that I was protected into adulthood. If I need a reason for a scary powerful being to know things about my sibling that would make sense to him, the answer was obvious. “Thomas Raith, I owe your mother more than I can ever afford to repay. I owe her my very life. I am beholden to protect you. Another is responsible for your brother’s wellbeing but I promise you by my power, by all that I am, by my magic and blood, by all that I am and all that I shall ever be, I have come here with the intention of saving your life.”

The air between us sizzled with the static discharge of my oath. The Incubus’ eyes narrowed in confusion. Oaths of power were not entered into lightly, certainly not by beings with power in abundance. I could not break that oath without damaging that same power, possibly even destroying it. And to do so in the midst of battle would be suicide.

He flinched as I summoned a sphere of protective energy around us to divert a wave of sorcerous lighting. I was an NBA sized, bare-naked, ancient god, who knew his true name, was immune to the effects of his vampiric magic, and apparently capable of causing third degree burns just by touching him. It wasn’t the family reunion I had hoped for, but at least he seemed to have accepted that killing me wasn’t going to be a viable option as he looked up at my towering form, the silver glow to his eyes dimmer than once it had been,

He stood up nervously within my summoned shield, flinching as a stray bullet pinged off the screen of energy. “You know about… him?”

“Harry?” I smiled widely. “I know more about Harry than he knows about himself. Trust me.”

“If my mother hired you to protect me, why haven’t I seen you before?” Thomas asked.

I gestured to the ongoing chaos around us. “Have you done anything this stupid before?”

“Not… quite this stupid.” Thomas agreed nervously.

“Good, now are you going to attack me if I turn my back on you or are you going to help me kick some Bram Stoker looking mother fucker’s teeth in?” I held out my hand to him. He grasped it nervously looking me in the eyes before I had a chance to stop him. I needn’t have worried, I felt no tug of a soul gaze. His eyes met my own, silver disks staring into starry void, without any shadow of connection between us.

Relief washed through me as he shook it nervously, “For now we fight the Black Court. For now.”

“Good,” I replied turning back to the chaos of battle around us. “Because I’ve got enough to worry about without making things more complicated.”

It was at roughly that moment that one of the Brute Squad Wizards misjudged his attack on a Black Court vampire, cutting through empty air of the vampire’s illusion. The ensorcelled blade came down hard, clanging against the thick iron cooking pot in the room’s center with a resounding ring of metal on metal as the blade severed the bonds of braided hair and silver. The Wizard dropped his blade in shock, backing away from the cooking pot in pure, atavistic fear as the pot’s top burst from it – spewing bilious orange smoke from it. An old man emerged from the smoke, tall, pale, and almost inhumanly thin. He was ancient and ugly, his patchy hair and beard barely hanging from his liver spot covered skin. His flesh was odd, hanging from him as though someone had just stretched healthy skin across a skeleton without bothering to fill in the space where his innards ought to be. The pale gold band of his crown sagged across his skull, dragging down flaps of malformed skin.

Something tugged at the edge of my senses when I looked at him, the same sort of nagging touch of cold I felt whenever Queen Mab entered a room. It was a sensation that I recognized as a memory of the power of Winter that had been in my soul when I’d ascended to godhood, a sort of spiritual phantom limb syndrome.

“Oh, come on.” My eyes flashed in irritation. “What else could possibly go wrong today?”

Thomas groaned as the man held out his arm, reaching into the Nevernever to pull out a wicked looking curved blade made from jet black stone. Mordite, the man had just summoned an entire sword made from weapons-grade Deathstone and was handling it with his bare fingers. My brother scowled at me and asked, “You just had to say it, didn’t you? You just had to say it?”

“Strap in pretty boy.” I replied, taking a defensive stance and standing back to back with my brother. “Things are about to get interesting.”


	10. Chapter 10

Mordite kills. I’m not saying that to be hyperbolic or to exaggerate the danger of the stuff. Mordite is literally concentrated, condensed, and caustic death to anything that it touches. Deathstone isn’t the sort of thing you want around you. It’s the stuff that sane people only deal with in theoretical discussions of precisely why you do not interact with mordite.

 

Only the most powerful of magic was even capable of containing the stuff. It was from the Outside and carried with it all the unfortunate complications that conveyed, namely that to even acquire fragments of the substance required to be both capable of and willing to engage with Outsiders. I’d only ever even seen a single piece of mordite when the Archive had brought it with her as part of my duel with Duke Ortega of the Red Court.

 

I didn’t even know there could be that much mordite in our world without doing serious and irreparable damage to the fabric of reality. Stuff from the Outside wasn’t supposed to be in our world. It didn’t belong.

 

But clearly nobody had bothered to explain that to the pensioner of doom. He barely looked capable of walking without the aid of a cane, let alone wielding deathstone like his plaything, but any Wizard knew that relying upon appearances was a quick route to a painful death when dealing with the spooky side of the street. What people could do was what counted, and liver-spots was at the top of my “don’t fuck with” list at the moment.

 

The craggy ancient being was twirling the black blade idly between his fingers, deft motion to them belied by their seemingly wizened form. Blue-green tendrils of deathly energy swam in the blade’s wake, oily shimmering echoes of where the weapon had once been as the mordite unmade the matter it touched. The man hooted with laughter, a raucous cry of ecstasy and madness as his body whipped with snake-like fluidity, wrapping up and around a Warden’s blade. His body popped and cracked as his bones twisted and dislocated within the loose skin, twisting into impossibly agonizing looking contortions of the human form. He slithered up and around the Brute Squad Wizard, cackling manically as he stabbed the black blade down through his victim. The wizard burst like a ripe melon, his body bisecting along the blade’s path and rupturing into necromantic filth.

 

The old man crowed with laughter as the filth turned to ash upon his naked body, his eyes bulging with near sexual glee at the taste of death upon his skin. Magic seemed to warp around him, fire and frost tossed towards him swirling past him as though it weren’t even present even as he sliced his blade through the chest of a Black Court vampire – bursting the creature’s foetid body into ash.

 

He cackled gleefully as he charged the doors to the library, slithering his way through the air in a distended shadow of manflesh cloaked in the shimmering blue-green echoes of mordite. Everyone and everything in his path died, screaming in agony as they turned to ash. He showed no preference to wizards or vampires, murdering both with a casual glee that echoed with disturbingly genuine mirth. The air pulsed with a necromantic edge of so much collected death, a pulsing palpable wrongness that the wiry man seemed to be actually inhaling as we wafted up the trailing green smoke into his greedy maw. He was literally eating the congealed death collected upon the edge of his blade.

 

Wizard Dominic put himself between the skeletal man and the doors, holding his blade at the ready – his body wreathed in magical flame. He yelled at the man, his voice enhanced by magic to the point that I could hear him even over the magical battle between us. “You shall go no further, Koschei. Your madness ends.”

 

The man laughed, his voice echoing with something altogether more disturbing than the metallic sounds of the Goa’uld. It was like listening to several voices speaking at once, each more hateful and mocking than the last. “Madness never ends boy. It just begets new madness.”

 

“I will not allow you escape, bastard of Baba Yaga!” The fire wreathed about the Brute Squad Wizard lashed out, burning hands grasping for the skeletal man. They tried to reach him, only for the green glow around him to reach back, tendrils of death slicing through the fiery blaze.

 

The man tutted disappointedly, shaking his finger in rebuke as though Wizard Dominic had just been particularly naughty. He pursed his lips and blew a kiss skyward. “He does not know that you listen mother, or that you will punish his rudeness as fiercely as you wish that you were able to control my own.” He crooned, sending a rude gesture skyward. “Or that I hate you more than any accusations he could offer.”

 

He swatted another blast of flame in irritation, snarling at Wizard Dominic. “Can you not see that I am having a private conversation with my mother?”

 

“Die creature,” Dominic stabbed for the skeletal man’s heart, only to find himself held aloft in the lighting quick grasp of the necromantic being. The sorcerous flames continued to burn around Wizard Dominic, but their protective corona of flames just flickered and died on the man’s ancient body. He gasped, stabbing hard into the skeletal man’s belly. The ensorcelled blade penetrated the man cleanly, cutting across his midsection with surgical precision.

 

I’ve seen gut wounds before. They’re never pretty. People have a lot of their innards kept around their midsection, including a couple of organs you don’t generally consider until they stop working entirely. A broadsword to the gut should have spread about thirty feet worth of intestines on the ground. It didn’t. The blade passed through the man’s skin like a hot knife through butter, but as it passed the ancient flesh just knit itself back together as though there hadn’t even been a wound to begin with.

 

Wizard Dominic’s eyes bulged as he stabbed the man again and again, cutting and slicing at the man’s body with his blade only to have the injuries heal faster than he could cause them. The man laughed with increasing mania as Wizard Dominic struggled against his impossibly strong grip, ancient fingers cutting off the Wizard’s air supply as the green patina of deathly energy wreathed about the skeletal man’s body started to rot away Wizard Dominic’s face and body. The Brute Squad Wizard aged thirty years in a matter of seconds, his hair and ears rotting off the side of his face before the wizened man drove the mordite blade into his gut to end Wizard Dominic’s suffering.

 

I flinched at the force of Wizard Dominic’s death curse, cascading red lightning ripping down from the ensorcelled storms of blood magic in the skies to scourge the skeletal man from the world of the living. Bolt after bolt of stolen sorcery collided with the cackling being, only to ripple and die as it touched him – leaving him to stand in a scorched patch of tile that stank of rot and ozone as he began the process of tearing down the wards keeping us within the library.

 

“I don’t suppose you know who that is?” Thomas queried as I raised my hand to block a burst of gunfire. My arm burned with the recoil of the automatic weapons colliding with.

 

“Someone whose reputation I’d been sincerely hoping was exaggerated.” I replied to my brother, knowing all too well that the rumors had, if anything, undersold the man in front of me. “Koschei the Deathless One.”

 

Koschei was the son of Baba Yaga, the “Iron Toothed” Witch of Winter. To date, there was only one fairy I’d ever met who was capable of withstanding the touch of Iron. Mother Winter, the eldest and most powerful queen of the Winter Court. She was as much outside of Mab’s league as Mab was outside my own. And Koschei was her bouncing baby boy.

 

“Well, that name is only slightly terrifying.” Thomas groaned. “On a scale of one to Hitler, how bad is this guy?”

 

“Imagine if Hitler and Stalin had a baby then sent it to be raised by Darth Vader on Mount Doom to play covers of Nickelback on the Accordion.” I tried to pick up one of the dead Wizard’s discarded blades only to pull my hand away abruptly as a shock of magical energy cascaded along the hilt, scorching my fingers painfully. I shook my hand reflexively in pain. “Ok, don’t touch the swords. Message received.”

 

“Nickelback?” My brother blinked.

 

“Oh, right it’s 2000, you’re not sick of them yet.” I yanked my brother down as a vampire swept an axe through where he’d been standing. I raised my hand and immolated the offending vampire in a blast of silver flame. The left side of his body cooked away, leaving him just enough lung to scream as he crawled away from me with his remaining arm and legs. “They’re a band. Trust me, they get old.”

 

“No I… I know who they are.” Thomas snarled, firing his Luger into the face of a Black Court vampire as it leapt forward to slice at him with filthy talons. It must have been a younger vampire, it still stank with the rot of recent death when the pistol rounds broke through the creature’s eyes. The creature staggered, not quite dead, as Thomas grappled with it – ripping the beast’s head from its shoulders with a burst of vampiric strength.

 

My brother groaned as he pulled the magazine from his luger, swearing in frustration at the lack of bullets. He grabbed the axe dropped by the immolated vampire, driving it down to separate the half-burned vampire’s head from his shoulders. He breathed heavily, pushing raven hair back from his eyes. “I just wasn’t expecting an eldritch abomination to have strong opinions on post-grunge alternative metal.”

 

“I’m eclectic.” I shrugged, “But Koschei? Big, scary, and dangerous – and probably the hardest thing to kill in existence. He’s basically known exclusively for being impossible to kill.”

 

“That doesn’t exactly tell me anything I didn’t already know… uh, actually what do I call you?” Thomas turned to me. “They never actually gave me name for you.”

 

“What, they just told you that I was dangerous and if I tried to get loose to fuck me to death?” I punched a vampire in the gut, casting a burst of kinetic energy as I did so that ripped the creature’s spine from its back.

 

“Yeah, pretty much.” Thomas swept his leg, dropping a Black Court soldier to the ground, setting me up to stake it through the heart with a bit of broken chair leg. “I mean, you’re from the pantheon that we were basically created to cull. It only makes sense to have one of us on hand. I mean, you’re basically the feast none of us has gotten to taste in centuries. One of you is supposedly enough to make the hunger go away entirely. I’ve never eaten that well. I don’t know if anyone other than father has.”

 

“Ah.” I replied, uncomfortable with how open my brother was being about his feeding habits under the circumstances. “Good then that I’m off the menu.”

 

“Apparently so.” Thomas rubbed the scalded bit of flesh reflexively. “They neglected to mention that you were in love when I agreed to this job.”

 

“I doubt they knew.” I replied, keeping my voice neutral. Lash was a sore subject for me. I’d fallen for the Angel’s shadow without realizing it, only realizing that we’d actually had something long after she’d passed into the hereafter. It was some small comfort knowing that Lash was in heaven, but increasingly as of late, I doubted that I was ever going to find someone else like her before I followed into the great journey after death. I was less confident in my own position in the afterlife than I was for hers.

 

It wasn’t a topic I was keen to linger on, so I opted for the safer subject of what to call me. “You may address me as the “Lord Warden” or “Warden” if you prefer. I am the Wizard King of Nekheb.”

 

“… You have got to be kidding me.” Thomas let out a long, low whistle. “No wonder the Council hates you so damn much. You’re bad for their PR.”

 

“I’ve historically had a difficult relationship with the council.” Why lie when the truth was sufficient? “They’ve tried to execute me more times than is strictly appropriate given how I actually do generally support their mission of protecting mortals and Wizards from abuse.”

 

I picked up the discarded staff from a dead wizard. It was next to useless to me as a magical implement given how little I knew of the magic used to construct it, but as blunt instruments went – it was pretty decent. I put my full strength behind the inch-thick wooden rod, smashing its iron capped top directly into the back of a Black Court Wizard fixing to chomp down on a Brute Squad Wizard’s throat. The decaying spine of the Black Court Vampire crumpled under the weight of the staff as I twisted it upward, impaling the vampire upon its wooden haft. I raised the kicking vampire up atop the wooden spear and spit roasted the monster with a furious shout. “Fuego!”

 

“Well I’m sorry, when I woke up today I wasn’t planning on providing status updates on a supernatural prison break to an Ancient Egyptian god of Chaos.” My brother ducked a green beam of energy that smelled of sulfur spat forth from one of the more magically inclined vampires, mauling a pair of Brute Squad Wizards.

 

“Hey, watch it with that “Ancient” crap, pretty boy, or I’ll leave you with a matching burn on the other side.” I replied to my brother’s almost good-natured jibe. It was good to see that Thomas had been decently capable of snark even before meeting me.

 

The Brute Squad Wizard who’d seemed to be Wizard Dominic’s second in command, a woman of Asian ancestry, looked up at me in utter bafflement. She’d crossed her arms in a vain attempt to ward off the supernatural predator, and seemed to be frozen in that gesture as her brain caught up to the fact that she wasn’t going to die. I grabbed her by the front of her grey stole and cloak, hefting her back to her feet and shoving her blade back into her hands. She stood gormlessly in front of me, holding the blade in her hands, seemingly too terrified to actually use the weapon.

 

“See it from her side,” I reminded myself under my breath. A naked evil space god just saved her from vampires, shoved a weapon in her hand, and is now essentially ignoring any potential threat she represents. I knew that I had no intention of killing White Council Wizards unless it was totally unavoidable

 

Being handed your weapon by an enemy is an admittedly perplexing situation, but really, she was taking far too long to get back into the fight. “Well don’t just stand there, Wizard, fight something.”

 

She clutched her blade, holding it towards me in a defensive posture, light on her feet to strike me at a moment’s notice. I rolled my eyes as I rubbed my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Not me – fight one of the vampires.”

 

Her eyes flicked to Thomas and back to me, arching her brow. I groaned. “For the love of, he’s here with you. You guys invited him. He’s killed Black Court vampires in front of you. What more are you looking for here?”

 

I immolated another black court vampire in a wave of white hot fire, not bothering to look away from the wizard as I let loose the tornado of fire. “I am a freaking god lady. Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space. If I was trying to kill you, I would have already burned you to ash while you were on the ground. So, you can stop wasting my time and leaving yourself exposed to attacks and let me go try to stop the immortal nightmare trying to break through your wards or you can get froggy and see exactly how good I am at smiting.”

 

“What guarantee do I have that you won’t join him and just kill us all?” Asked the Brute Squad Wizard.

 

“Oh for the love of – I swear on my power that I’m not going to attack you or anyone else from the White Council except in self-defense while I’m dealing with the nightmarish monster carrying the deathstone sword.” I spoke the oath, and felt the wave of power wash over me and the Wizard. I must have used more power than I intended to, her knees actually shook as though they might give out when the oath hit her. “Now, are you going to stab me, or can I go and deal with the Deathless one?”

 

The woman didn’t ever look away from me, not even as she spun and vivisected a Black Court Vampire that tried to catch her from behind. She kept her gaze upon me, though her blade lowered slightly. “I will take you at your word, Old God. But know that I am not foolish enough to trust you.”

 

“Cool,” I replied, turning my back on her and walking towards Koschei through the pitched battle. I suspected that she’d likely had about four or five pithy comments chambered after that one, Wizards really did love to hear the sound of our own voices, but I wasn’t in the mood for the usual posturing. She was just going to keep rambling about how untrustworthy I was and how she’d find a way to defeat me someday. I’d been on the other side of that rant before – it was kind of boring to be on the receiving end.

 

I mean, realistically I was capable of kicking this woman’s ass six ways from Sunday. But the theoretical threat I posed was entirely mitigated by my own utter refusal to execute that action. Not only did I not want to have to do that, I was actively invested in something that was likely going to save this person’s entire world as she knew it. While I might not be able to save her life, if she wanted my help in averting total catastrophe she needed to let go of her well-deserved fear of my power and actually assist me in executing actions beyond my ability to explain that were ultimately to her benefit.

 

Was this how things had been for Mab when she’d come to me in my office equipped with the future knowledge I’d provided her? She had a road map for exactly how my actions would be necessary to averting global catastrophe, and my previous self used the opportunity to be glib and petulant with a cosmic force of Air and Darkness. If I’d known then what I now knew of the Winter Queen’s capacity to defeat entire fleets of Goa’uld warships, I suspect that I would have been slightly less glib with the Winter Queen.

 

I cringed. Oh, hells bells. I was starting to empathize with Mab.

 

A particularly unfortunate vampire became the focus of my frustration as I ripped him away from a screaming Brute Squad Wizard, grabbing him by his arms and kicking down at the vampire’s shoulder-blades. I ripped the arms from the Vampire’s body at the shoulder, letting the creature flop in agony on the ground as ash and fetid blood seeped from his sudden case of bilateral amputation. Thomas crushed the vampire’s head as he passed, putting the pitieous monster out of its misery.

 

“Empty night, Warden.” Thomas blinked. “Did the Black Court do something to offend you?”

 

“Yes.” I replied curtly. My eye twitched at the memory of Mavra’s blackmail of Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, one of many matters left unresolved when I’d been thrust back in time. If I couldn’t find my way back to the vampire, she would end the life and career of one the people who’d been willing to back me even before I’d become the Lord of Nekheb. These might not be directly from Mavra’s scourge, but they were close enough for government work.

 

Thomas was family but as a rule, I hate vampires. Even before I was at war with them, I hated them. Vampires eat people. Some of them do it in more “civilized” ways than others, but all vampires are obligate murders. Every one of them I killed made the world safer. My eyes flared with angry light as I cast fire at the vampires between myself and Koschei. There weren’t many, the Black Court had wisely elected to give the Deathless a wide berth, but those few who remained found themselves wreathed in spellfire and dying in agony.

 

Koschei was ignoring the battle, leaning on his mordite blade as an old man might lean upon a cane. His back was bowed and his patchy hair dangling down as he examined the magics upon the door. Sparks of magical energy shimmered down from his hands as he rand them along the wooden surface, energy cascading across the curious barrier of green energy that shimmered along his body. He sniffed at the air as I approached, tilting his head in curiosity. “Odd, my adoptive sister usually doesn’t allow her power to touch one who she hasn’t latched her talons into so entirely that they can’t think for themselves unless she permits it. And I was quite under the impression that she’d done away with your bloodlines entirely. And … no, it can’t be…”

 

He tilted his head over his shoulder, grinning widely to expose a mouth full of sharp, rotting teeth. He sniffed the air again, his eyes bulging. “Mother…. You’ve met Mother and lived? My, my, my… How is she these days? Still living with my Auntie, I assume?”

 

“Your mother was well when last we met, as was your aunt.” I replied, standing proudly. Well, I stood as proudly as one can do standing naked in stolen boots. “And your sister.”

 

“Adoptive sister.” Koschei snarled, his eyes seemed to protrude slightly from his skull as he emphasized his disconnection from Mab. “Mother seems to believe that she can just replace family when they’re no longer useful to her. She thinks that the Mantles are enough to make them what she lost. They will never be family, not truly. They are just insulting echoes of my sister and niece.”

 

“You’ll pardon me if I decline to comment on the matter.” I replied. “I try to stay out of family drama.”

 

“Puppet, you’re already part of my family’s drama.” Koschei tutted disappointedly. “Once you’ve met my adoptive sister, its already too late.”

 

“Perhaps, but I don’t think that anything I might say about her in this situation would improve my standing. If I agree with you, I anger her. If I side with her, I anger you. Better to avoid the subject.” I shrugged. “Dare I ask what you are doing, Koschei?”

 

“I am finding my way through the door that keeps us in here puppet.” Koschei smiled. “So that I might take my vengeance upon the Archive. And you – puppet of Winter – why are you here?”

 

“I was captured, as you were.” I replied, mustering my power for the fight I knew was coming. There was no way I was going to let Mab’s lunatic half-brother have Ivy.

 

“Ah, but were you?” The man’s eyes spun unnaturally within their sockets, twisting and bouncing. “No… no…. Winter’s puppets don’t find me by accident. They find me because my sister’s replacements never learn from her mistake.” He cackled giddily looking up to the sky. “When will you give me what is mine by birth, mother? How many times must I kill my sister before she dies? How many agents must perish before I am given my kingdom?”

 

In the blink of an eye he was upon me, writhing serpentine limbs wrapping around me and dragging me to the ground in a binding constriction of pink flesh and jagged bone. Thomas and the female Warden tried hacking at the man with their weapons, ensorcelled blade and iron axe beating at the ancient being. But as they had been when Wizard Dominic used them, the weapons were useless against Koschei’s protective magics. I screamed “Forzare” and directed as much offensive energy as I could muster towards the Prince of Winter, only to have that weird, green energy siphon it away before it could cause him any damage.

 

I watched in horror as the mordite blade came down towards me, powerless to stop it as the blade came down towards my neck. And then suddenly, I was revolving out of control. I could still feel my body, I could feel the constriction of the Koschei’s coils wrapped around me, and yet, I was tumbling across the ground painfully. The world ceased to whirl abruptly as I collided with the base of a wide bookshelf, my still spinning vision struggling to reconcile the impossible tableau before me.

 

I was staring at my own headless body on the ground as the Deathless One liberated himself from me, looking from his blade, to my body, and back in frustration. He stabbed the body several times in irritation, causing painful jolts of agony as the mordite pierced my chest but no more than I would have imagined coming from any other blade. He glared at my decapitated head, pointing at me accusatorily and shouting as he jumped up and down in fury. He stomped the tile hard enough to shatter it as he screamed, frothing at the mouth as he continued to stab me with the blade. “Cheater! You cheated. No fair! No fun! Cheater!”

 

“Fuck off!” I snarled, gritting my teeth and willing the fist of my left hand to punch up at the man stabbing my decapitated body with not only my own enhanced strength, but an extra helping of magic to push my fist faster than should have been strictly possible. My fist collided with Koschei’s crotch, landing with a resounding “thunk” of fist meeting flesh. Immortal and unkillable though he might be, I knew enough about Koschei’s lore to know that at least some parts of him functioned like a normal man. At least I hoped it was the case.

 

It wasn’t strictly in line with Marquees of Queensbury Rules, but it did abruptly discourage Koschei from stabbing me as I flopped over my headless body and crawled towards my severed head. The process was disorienting as hell, our bodies aren’t really designed to be piloted from a third person perspective. Luckily Thomas caught on to what I was trying to do and picked up my head from the ground, nervously placing it back upon my body as I reached up to press it down upon my neck. There was an abrupt sensation of searing pain as my head met my neck, followed by a glorious feeling of wholeness as my neck knit itself back together.

 

I cricked my neck to the left and back to the right, loud popping noises echoing from my spine as I re-aligned my vertebrae. “Well, that was unpleasant.”

 

Thomas shook his head in amazement. “You’re sure that the other guy is the “Deathless One” right? Because that seemed pretty deathless to me man.”

 

“I killed a god of Death to get the gig.” I replied, approaching Koschei with renewed confidence. Mordite didn’t kill me. It didn’t even particularly seem to bother me. “I guess that had more bonuses than I realized.”

 

“Cheater!” Koschei was still screaming in fury. “I won’t play with a cheat.” He stabbed his blade into the center of the warded door, and spoke a single word in a language I didn’t recognize that sent a wave of greasy power out across the room. I gagged at the weight of it, putting myself between Thomas and the spellwork as I rose my defensive shield. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen when Koschei’s magic met Pietrovich’s wards but I was positive it would be explosive.

 

And if nothing else, you can trust Harry Dresden on the subject of explosions.

 

A wave of fire and force washed across the library, setting the place ablaze as yard long shards of wooden shrapnel burst out as thought they’d been launched from a claymore. Wizard and Vampire alike were caught by surprise, rendered into roasting hunks of bloody flesh. I had to fight the natural urge to stop fighting and rush over to the shelves, the tomes in Archangel were old enough that some of them had probably been rescued from the Library of Alexandria. But if I stopped to save them, it would let Koschei get even further from me.

 

Even as the flames and shrapnel had pelted inward, Koschei had flung himself down the corridor, impossibly fast body skimming through the air on the green-blue cloud of death energy. I was not able to pursue him, however, as I found myself suddenly lifted into the air by two massive, hairy hands. The Bigfoot had stopped vomiting snakes and had apparently decided to make good on his promise of violence towards me.

 

And for the second time that day, my head was ripped from my body and tossed across the room. It was really amazing the sorts of things you got used to over time.


	11. Chapter 11

Vivisection is deeply unpleasant. I highly advise avoiding it if one has the opportunity to do so. That my life has devolved to the point where I have enough experiential knowledge to rate the relative unpleasantness of differing types of vivisection is a matter I generally prefer not to discuss, given virtually any other potential topic of conversation. You don’t know it, but trust me when I say that you take the relative equilibrium of having all your limbs attached in the proper places entirely for granted.

 

After about the age of five we all just use our limbs without thinking actively about the process of lifting our arm, flexing our leg, or tilting our head at any given second. The minutiae of manipulatinag the human body in three-dimensional space is a constant for which very little active thought is required to orient ourselves relative to world we exist within.

 

Once your body parts are divested from each other, however, the logistics involved in manipulating them with any degree of efficacy is like trying to direct chess moves underwater via sousaphone - difficult, confusing, and entirely incomprehensible to someone who hasn’t had a pressing need to execute the activity. Suffice it to say, Bigfoot’s psychotic cousin was happily forcing me to engage in an impromptu exercise in aquatic sousaphone as he started ripping my limbs from my body, hooting with simian glee.

 

It was a much bloodier affair than the mordite blade had been, the star flecked liquid of my blood poured from my body and into his matted fur as he tore me to shreds. I would have like to say something witty or biting, but under the circumstances I was too busy screaming. My current lack of lungs provided only minor impediment to the vocalization of a new and horrific pain as he tore my genitals from my torso and flung them into my face, holding my pale, bloody torso aloft and breaking it over his knee before tossing it upon the pile with all my other discarded limbs.

 

The bigfoot stood victorious before me, grinning his gristly rotting smile as he shrugged off spells from the female Brute Squad Warden. His fur dripped with my blood and viscera, galaxies and constellations shimmering across his matted hide as he flexed his massive fingers. He laughed a low hateful rumble, dragging his knuckes across the ground as he batted away the Brute Squad Wizard’s spell with a disinterested wave of his paw – shattering the cutting burst of air to waft across the room harmlessly. “I just broke a god, Witch – and you think you can hurt me with the breeze?”

 

“I don’t need to hurt you, Genoskwa. You already did more to yourself than I could hope to manage.” The Brute Squad Wizard whistled sharply, calling the surving Brute Squad Wizards into a protective circle around us, giving Thomas time to pile my body parts into a rug. My arms and legs were still kicking violently, complicating the process greatly as he hefted the bag over his shoulder and propped my head in the crook of his arm.

 

“Big talk for a little girl.” The Genoskwa licked his lips hungrily. “Maybe I keep you around before I eat you. Have a bit of fun before dinner.”

 

“I’m going to have to decline that offer, big boy.” Replied the Female Warden. “I’m going to walk out that door and you’re going to die in agony.”

 

“You’re not even close to my match, little witch.” Replied the Genoskwa, planting his fingers in the ground and growling. His sheer presence started to lift rubble from the ground, his immense magical presence imposing itself upon the world around him.

 

“I’m not the one utterly soaked with divine blood and standing in the center of a room full of injured Vampires.” The woman replied, an evil glint in her eyes the hunting cries of Black Court Warriors hissed out from around the library. Black Court Vampires had a couple of Achillies heels, but with the exception of a very specific set of circumstances they were damn sturdy. Injuring a Black Court Vampire without killing it just made them exponentially angrier, and exponentially hungrier.

 

The Genoskwa was soaked with a vampiric smorgasbord, the pure, uncut, unfiltered, unadulterated, and for the past several centuries unavailable blood of a god. The Genoskwa disappeared under a wave of vampire warriors, the injured vampiric shock troops long past the point of sanity as they tried to feast upon my blood and the Genoskwa’s flesh alike. The small cadre of surviving Brute Squad warriors didn’t wait to see who won the fight, escorting my brother and the Female Warden through the shattered remnants of the library’s doors and into the tower of Archangel.

 

The Wardens collapsed the hall behind us, bringing down tons of marble to the ground as the hunting cries of even more Black Court vampires sounded. I caught a glimpse of dozens more black-clad figures flying into the burning library, a second wave of Black Court warriors joining the initial shock troops. My eyes flashed reflexively as a grin spread across my lips. “That’s right! That’s what you get for ripping me apart you knockoff nega-Chewbacca.”

 

The Wardens continued to collapse the hall as we went, putting as much stone between themselves and the inferno of the library as they could manage. We got to a richly furnished sitting area covered in amber before the Female Warden stopped, cut her finger, and rubbed it across a tall stone figure above the mantle. I felt the wash of defensive wards go up in the room, recognizing them as destructive magics similar to those placed upon the library doors. Hells Bells, Archangel must have been just littered with combat wards. This room seemed more like a random alcove than a specific defensive point, but there was as much power to protect this sitting room as I’d put in my apartment in Chicago.

 

Thomas dropped the bloody bag of my body parts a bit more roughly than I would have strictly cared for, placing my bleeding head upon the ground next to the rug as he unrolled it and turned to me. His face was vaguely green, as he looked at the bloody mess of ivory skin covered in black blood. “So… uh… is this just plug and play, or do I have to say something to put everything back together?”

 

“Don’t put it back together!” Hissed the female warden, slapping Thomas’ hand as he reached tentatively for my left leg. “We finally have the God in a more manageable state, why would you resurrect him?”

 

“He can hear you, you know.” I interjected, trying to use my jaw to pivot on the ground and face the Warden. It was a lot harder than Bob made it look. I ended up just falling over rather than doing the spin he always seemed to manage so easily, but I was at least slightly more able to see her than I previously could. “And right now, having me whole is a lot less dangerous than having me in pieces.”

 

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t take the word of a God of Lies, Treason and Chaos at face value, “Warden.” The Archive warned us that you were capable of spinning lies with truth and offering us what we desire most.” The Warden picked me up painfully by my ear, her disdainful gaze not quite meeting my eyes.

 

“Look, treat me like the Fae if you have to. Don’t trust a word I say if you have to. But right now you’re carrying around a pile of bleeding god parts, which amounts to a pile of Vampire catnip. As long as I’m broken into bits and spreading out across your rug its just putting out a “free lunch” signal to any Vampire close enough to catch a whiff of me.” I raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Do you think your chances of survival are improved by having me not only unable to fight vampires, but by leaving open the possibility for the Vampires to feed off of me? Does “a vampire who feasted upon a god” sound like the sort of thing you want to deal with?”

 

She glared at me, but it was the sort of glare I’d seen Morgan give me when he’d failed to impose the Doom of Damocles upon me. It was the “I would like nothing more than to kill you where you stand but I can’t do so without causing something worse in the long run” stare. I smiled, “Come on, don’t be like that. We can be friends! Lets start with introductions. I’m the Warden of Nekehb, and you are?”

 

“You can call me Warden Nanami.” The woman replied, her voice utterly arctic in a way that convinced me she was desperate enough to see how long I stuck to my word. I’d been on the other side of this equation before, dealing with creatures more powerful than I. She didn’t dare show exactly how horrified she was of what was happening at Archangel. I didn’t know the precise number of Wizards in Pietrovich’s Brute Squad, by design the number of Wizards in both the Wardens and Brute Squad was a guarded secret. But the opening days of the war had reduced the Wardens from thousands to Dozens and the Brute Squad from likely dozens to zero. I was very likely surrounded by the elite of the Brute Squad, and they’d been devastated already.

 

“Warden Nanami, you already have my word that I will not attack. You are under siege. I am a being of means. There is no profit to keeping me unable to fight vampires and everything to gain from letting me fight the ancient enemy of the Goa’uld.” I winked knowingly. “And I’m very good at killing vampires.”

 

“I know that I will come to regret this.” The woman dropped me onto my bloody pile of limbs, turning to Thomas. “These wards will last for ten minutes. My men and I need to see to the wounded and try to contact the defenders. Put the God of Chaos back together. If he tries to betray us, you both die.”

 

“Right.” Replied Thomas, elongating the vowel far past any semblance that he believed Nanami was actually capable of killing me. He picked up my leg and pressed it against the bleeding stump of my pelvis. There was a rush of cool air as some of the blood congealed upon the rug was sucked up and into my body, sealing the limb to my torso. He pressed them each against me, restoring them with yet another cool burst of air – pausing in front of my genitals and looking at me. “So… do you want me to put that back on… or…”

 

“No… no…” I replied emphatically, shaking my head as best I could on my stump of neck. “I got that.”

 

“Good.” Replied my brother as he picked up my head and placed it back upon my shoulders. “Because that’s just… I mean, I’m an incubus and that’s even weird by my standards.”

 

“No, trust me, I get it.” I agreed, reaching down to pick up the remaining appendage. I fretted briefly in front of a mirror on the wall, doing my best to make sure that everything was properly aligned before fixing it in place. It seemed likely that I would be able to detach the part and give it a second try if need be, but I was hoping to avoid a repeat if at all possible. After a probably prolonged moment of examining myself in the mirror to be sure everything was attached to what it was supposed to be attached to I held out my hand and immolated the rug to destroy my remaining blood.

 

“My sister is going to be furious that she missed out on this.” Thomas snorted as he watched the blood on my flesh seep into the ivory skin, starlight dissolving into pure white.

 

“Lara will get over it.” I replied, briefly wondering if without Mab’s interference to get me here it would have been my older brother’s half-sister here in his place. Or would either of them have been here at all? Without my presence the Archive likely wouldn’t have had cause to involve herself and my brother by proxy.

 

“Seriously, how are you so well informed.” Thomas shook his head. “Even my father would have taken a few moments before guessing which of my sisters I was referring to.”

 

“Lara is the sister you like.” The sister he’d been willing actually align himself with when he’d tried to make a play for ruling the White Court, for that matter. And, in her own psychotic, evil and untrustworthy vampire way, she actually was the sort of person it made sense for Thomas to put a relative degree of trust in. “I don’t think you’d overly care if the rest of your sisters missed out on something… well, maybe Inari.”

 

Thomas flinched at the name of his youngest sister, a dangerous look in his eyes as he snarled. “You leave her alone.”

 

“Thomas – I’m not threatening your little sister.” I rolled my eyes as I grabbed a tapestry from the wall and wrapped it around my waist, turning the centuries old decoration into a makeshift loincloth. “Just commenting on how which of them you like the most. You like Lara because she’s the one you think you can rely upon to keep her word and you like Inari because you’re hoping that she can be saved from becoming a succubus if she meets the right guy.”

 

Thomas got very still. Yeah, I was cheating and pulling from a nearly a year of having lived with the guy but if I had to play the role of “cryptic mentor” I could at least do it well, damn it. I tied off the loincloth, flexing my hands and popping my still slightly misaligned spine back into place with a squelching crack. I groaned in satisfaction, stretching back and forth. “You’re right by the way – on both counts. Lara is dangerous but honest, and Inari is going to fall in love with a guy who loves her back before she becomes a succubus. It’s going to take some effort from you, but she’ll manage to live a normal life without the hunger.”

 

“Empty Night,” Thomas shuddered. “I thought that I was the tempter of souls in this room. There’s temptation and then there’s just … wow. That is some varsity level fucked up shit.”

 

“I’m telling the truth.” I replied.

 

“I believe you.” Thomas replied, rolling his eyes. “Which is why I don’t trust a word of it. When the most dangerous monster hunters in the world trap the god of Lies and he starts telling you everything you want to hear, start looking for the trap. Just because I haven’t seen it yet doesn’t mean that I’m falling for it.”

 

“I’m not exactly the god of lies.” I replied in frustration.

 

“Then what are you the god of exactly?” Asked my brother.

 

I paused, realizing how ridiculous “I’m not a god” would sound in context with having just put me back together like a broken Ken doll. “That’s sort of a theological discussion at the moment within my clergy. I don’t really like labels… worship isn’t really my thing.”

 

“So what, you’re an Agnostic to your own theology?” Thomas rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’re really selling me on the “honest” nature of your godhood.”

 

I didn’t have a good reply to that, so I just elected to walk over to the amber walls and examine the wards with my Wizard’s sight. It was really amazing how little the wards had changed from Simon’s, to Justin’s, to my own. They were a good deal stronger than anything I’d ever been able to make, but I wrote that off as having had a couple centuries to empower them. The wards placed upon this room in particular just seemed lackluster come to think of it. I squinted in confusion, examining them more closely as I followed the path of energy around the room. “That can’t be right. Who made these?”

 

“Warden?” Nanami looked up at me, using my title derisively as she bandaged the shoulder of a Brute Squad Wizard.

 

“Who made these wards? They’re terrible. I mean, they look strong if you don’t know what you’re doing but they have deliberated flaws built into them.” I looked to the four corners of the room, confirming my suspicions. “All of them, they’re purposely useless. These wards were designed to break down if someone hit them the right way. They feel like they’re valuable because there is a lot of juice behind them, but we’re standing in the center of a submarine with screen doors.”

 

“You must be mistaken.” Nanami stood, looking where I pointed as her eyes clouded over with her own wizard’s sight. “That… that cannot be... you must have tampered with them.”

 

“Would that be while I was re-attaching my dick or when I was making improvised pants?” I snorted. “Look, I know wards. I’m good at wards. But I’m not “make them change with my mind while I’m decapitated and lying on the ground” good at wards.” I pointed to the flaw in the ward structure. “And that isn’t an ad-hoc change to the warding. Somebody actually built that into the wards when they first went up.”

 

“But these defenses have been here since Archangel was first constructed.” She shook her head in confusion. “The wards were either put up by Pietrovich himself or by his apprentices as part of their tutelage.”

 

“You mean apprentices like Justin “I do business with He Who Walks Behind” DuMorne?” I queried, blinking the sight out of my eyes as I turned to Nanami and realized that I had accidentally moved my hand into her line of vision while she had her Wizard’s sight active. I counted to three and turned to face her as she stared at me, open mouthed, looking into my chest with rapt attention. Her eyes were unfocused as though staring at some point miles behind me, her lips almost forming words in Japanese. She shook off whatever vision she’d seen, clearing her throat as the scales fell from her eyes and she returned to normal sight.

 

I didn’t dare ask her what she’d seen with the sight. I didn’t really want to know.

 

When the warden spoke again, it was with a degree of caution she hadn’t previously used. “You think that DuMorne sabotaged us so long ago?”

 

“I think that he was a prick.” I replied. “And that on the short list of pricks who could have fucked with your wards he’s top of the list for people I could imagine selling out the White Council to the vampires for this sort of thing if he knew he’d already torpedoed the wards of one of their fortresses.”

 

I pointed to the collapsed tunnel. “If you’d been forced to fall back here to fight off the vampires and these wards actually went off you’d fry as many of your own guys as you killed vampires. Hell, I think it’s actually intended to just explode eventually if they’re turned on.”

 

Thomas blanched. “Uh… if that’s the case, shouldn’t we turn off the wards? You know, given that we’re standing in the center of them.”

 

Nanami swore in Japanese, turning to the amber icon. “It isn’t designed to be turned off. It’s activated by blood and then just keeps going for the duration of the spell.”

 

“That’s… bad.” I groaned, given my own suddenly discovered durability I was confident that I would survive the blast but not in my ability to do so without maiming or killing Thomas in the process. “I don’t suppose that old Pete taught you guys the skeleton key to axing his wards, did he?”

 

Nanami swore again in Japanese.

 

“Fine… fine… I’ve got this.” I grumbled under my breath, fidgeting with the tapestry tied around my waist. I untied it and handed it to my brother, I was going to be manipulating some dangerous energy as part of this and having anything in my way was going to complicate the process. “But I want some damn pants when this is over.”

 

I looked around the room for the objects to assist me in the ritual I was going to need to conduct to take down the wards safely. The items themselves weren’t significant except as symbols, but it was a hell of a lot easier to do magic with the assistance of symbols than it was to keep all of the iconography and elements of magic straight in your head without them. I snagged a candle, a dried flower from a bowl, an ornamental horse carved from amber and placed them on the ground as I sat cross legged in front of the north wall. “I need water and something for air.”

 

Nanani handed me her canteen and a feather she pulled from a charm on her waist. “Will these do?”

 

“Nicely.” I nodded, placing the feather on the ground and snapping my fingers to light the candle. I focused my eyes upon the candle, letting the concepts of earth, fire, stone, water, and air meld in my mind – using my own magic to bind them conceptually as I reached out touch the wards. I exhaled nervously as I felt my magic contact that of the wards. Assuming that these wards were, in fact, built by Justin DuMorne I was reasonably certain that I would know the proper sequence of magical elements required to manipulate the ward structure.

 

The only way for Justin to teach me how to construct wards had been to watch him do so, and replicate them on my own. It had been a grueling process that Justin had treated with the same degree of severity as he approached every other aspect of my training, rewarding victory and punishing failure with inordinate harshness. He’d never put me in lethal danger in the process, but there had been more than sufficient pain for me to learn the lesson of how to quickly lower and raise his wards.

 

If they weren’t keyed the same way that Justin’s wards had been made in my training, or if he’d intentionally built them to prevent anyone from manipulating his trap, I was likely dooming all of my companions.

 

After only a few seconds I immediately realized that I needn’t have worried. Justin had apparently been eager to avoid becoming a victim of his own treachery, building intentional points of failure into their structural as well as into their usage. It was laughably easy to gain control of the ward structure and even easier to disable them once I’d gained entry. There was a brief snap-hiss of releasing energy as the wards de-activated, the ambient flavor of magic that had been building in the air dissolving into a clear taste of ozone.

 

“One is left to wonder exactly how you are so conversant in manipulating the wards of the White Council, Lord Warden.” Nanami queried, taking care to never turn her back to me as I took the tapestry back from Thomas and wrapped it around me again.

 

“You’re welcome, Lady.” I replied in her native Japanese before switching to English for Thomas. “Geeze, get a load of her? You’d think she’d show a little gratitude for saving your lives.”

 

Thomas shrugged, hefting his stolen axe over his shoulder. “Wizards like to pretend they know more than anyone else. They don’t like it when someone starts messing with that illusion.”

 

Well, Nanami was just going to have to get over that one. I knew more than she did, and I wasn’t planning on sharing why any time soon. “Lady, you kidnapped a god of magic and you’re surprised he can fiddle with your mortal wards? There’s arrogant and then there’s just entirely missing context. My library is older than your entire society and you’re surprised that I know a couple of shortcuts that you don’t? Really?”

 

“Wizard Pietrovich invented this type of ward.” Replied Nanami, not letting the matter go. With good cause, I supposed, but she had no reason to know why.

 

“Yeah… and if I was from Earth I’d probably have to have been one of his apprentices to learn it. You remember that magic ring you went through to travel to other planets? I’m not exactly from the neighborhood.” I waved the idea away as though it were ridiculous. “It’s a big galaxy. Too big and too old for anyone on Earth to have been the first to “invent” anything.”

 

“Other planets?” Queried Thomas, his interest piqued.

 

I blinked. “Seriously? Did they just give you a plane ticket to Russia and an address?”

 

Thomas snorted. “You wish. They just gave me an address and a time. I had to arrange my own transport. Beyond rude if you ask me. I mean, yeah, my family is wealthy but if you want me to show up you could at least offer me a coach ticket.”

 

“You ride coach?” It didn’t quite jive with my experience with the White Court thus far.

 

“Empty Night, no. Father wouldn’t ever stand for it, but the offer would be appreciated.” Thomas turned to me and repeated the question. “Are you telling me that you’re from another planet? As in Aliens?”

 

“I rule several of them, yes.” I replied, gnashing my teeth together as a piercing jolt of rage ran through me. I now had irrefutable proof that Thomas not only knew about alien life, and hadn’t told me. “No Harry,” I reminded myself mentally. “He isn’t living with you yet. The changes to your past are things that you’re remembering in real time. He has two more years before you get to be mad at him for not telling you this.”

 

Stars and stones, I was building up pre-emptively for fourth dimensional sibling rivalry. There was no degree of therapy in existence that would properly deal with this crap. And how exactly was I going to explain to Thomas that I was actually his brother when the time came? He’d only seen me as the “Lord Warden,” not his brother. His introduction to me was literally as an unkillable cosmic force of evil – it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing for which they had greeting cards made.

 

But then, it was the exact same sort of problem Thomas had faced when he’d first met me. Turnabout was a bitch when it came down to it. Things had a way of repeating themselves in life, once you saw something happen once you could pretty much rely upon seeing it happen later in life to a lesser or greater degree.

 

Oh, hell’s bells… things did have a habit of repeating, didn’t they? Especially things like the way people constructed wards. And Justin had been a trusted member of the Wardens for a long time before his eventual fall from grace. He was exactly the sort of person who would have been able to access a corridor outside the most guarded prison in the Wizarding world.

 

I massaged my forehead with the palm of my hand as a thought hit me, a terrible thought – a horrifically plausible thought. “Nanami, was this the only set of wards that Justin DuMorne had a hand in constructing?”

 

“No… oh God help us… no….” Nanami replied in horror. “Simon’s apprentices helped construct most of the major warding stones for Archangel under Simon’s tutelage to free up Wizard Pietrovich to construct the more dangerous and destructive wards.”

 

I groaned, answers to the question of “how did the vampires get into Archangel” and “Why did the wards fall” occurring to me. “Would these other wards perhaps be similar to the ones I just disabled? Say, wards that are easy to circumvent with some basic direction that turn into a time-bomb once they’re turned on. Wards that wouldn’t stop a vampire army from entering but might explode after detecting one?”

 

I swore furiously, rubbing my forehead with the palm of my hand in irritation. “Of course, they are. Why wouldn’t they be. We’re standing in the heart of a fortress with as many wards as Edinburgh, and Darth Dickhead decided to turn them into a time bomb to take the whole place out. No – that’s just freaking fantastic. Dare I ask if the wards prevent us from entering the Nevernever to escape?”

 

“There is a single path to Edinburg accessible through the Library permitted by the wards.” Replied Nanami dryly. “I’m disinclined to use it under the circumstances.”

 

“And that answers why the Vampires would send suicide troops to open up a supermax prison full of critters that don’t especially care for Vampires.” I groaned. “We were their insurance policy to keep you here long enough for the place to explode.”

 

“It would seem that the late DuMorne did not pass into the gates of hell without ensuring that he would not travel alone.” Nanami agreed, resting her blade upon her shoulder against her stole. “The power in the magical protections for this fortress is not insubstantial. The entire city of Arkhangelsk and most of the surrounding province will likely be lost if the leyline used to power them explodes.”

 

“Christ… and we’re in the heart of Russia. If an explosion big enough to destroy a city happens they’re going to assume “nuke” not “wizard.” By the time anyone realizes that the US didn’t shoot first it’s going to be too late to stop anything.” I shuddered, not wanting to imagine a post-apocalyptic world ruled by the Red Court by default after nuclear ash choked out the sun.

 

“Wow…” Thomas’ lip curled in horror. “This is… really bad. I, uh, I’ve never been on the verge of a total global apocalypse before… what do we do?”

 

“We stop it obviously.” Nanami interjected, snapping her fingers as she issued orders to her subordinates.

 

I sighed. I was already saving the damsel, fleeing the vengeful queen and defeating the monster, why not add “save the world” to my list of tasks for the day?

 

“You know what the worst part of this is?” I sighed. “I’m about do something that is just going to make a guy I hate insufferably smug if he ever realized that I’m the one who did it.”

 

“Which is?” Thomas queried.

 

“I’m going to take down the wards for this entire structure.” I winced, imagining the glee on Donald Morgan’s face when he finally discovered what had become of me after the Darkhallow. Perhaps the man hadn’t been quite as off base as I’d first believed when he’d accused me of bringing down Simon Pietrovich’s wards after the death of the Summer Knight.


	12. Chapter 12

As we moved through the Tower, following Nanami and her warriors, their furtive glances upwards to check the high-ceilings for vampires felt forced. They were well-trained warriors, long familiar with the odd angles that vampires would often choose for an assault, but they were fighting their own instincts even as they followed their training.

 

My stomach churned uncomfortably as I realized that I was not using pronouns like “we” and “us” in referring to the Brute Squad Wizards – nor was I mirroring their own tense body language as we traversed the tower. I was walking alongside my brother at the center of the wizard warriors, silently considering our predicament as we approached the horrible sounds of the vampire army on the lower’s lower levels.

 

I was not in pain, which was remarkable in and of itself given the recent, forcible dislocation of my limbs – especially given that it had been freaking mordite that had cut off my head the first time. Even supernatural creatures generally died when you decapitated them. I wasn’t eager to test the limits of my newly discovered durability, but I was apparently at least partially immortal given that I had been able to touch mordite without lasting consequences.

 

Immortal, but clearly not invincible – if I wasn’t careful I’d end up chopped up into bits and playing Bob for someone higher up the cosmic food chain. Re-attaching limbs was a fun party trick, but the Genoskwa had still broke me like a Kit-kat bar in the interim.

 

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Chicago Detective or Dark God of Sorcery, fate had a way of running Harry Dresden through the wringer.

 

Archangel was entirely new to me. It wasn’t a common destination, even for the majority of wizards who were allowed to visit, but I had been entirely opposed to the idea of going near it for most of my adult life. My own murderous warlock of a foster father grew up there, he’d learned how to do magic there. I’d only learned of its existence years later, long after I’d passed the White Council’s tests to verify my status as an accredited Wizard, but I was immediately repulsed by the very notion of sharing the same space as a younger DuMorne.

 

I don’t know if Pietrovich had ever been interested in meeting his “grand-apprentice” taught by the black sheep of Archangel, but I had been entirely opposed to meeting him. I’d never really put any sort of conscious thought into why I’d disliked the idea so much.

 

Given how far away Russia was from where I lived, and how little of a cause there was for me to need to go anywhere near it, it was sort of a strange thing for me to have such strong opinions on. It wasn’t

like I had some sort of a standing invitation to go there.

 

As the Warlock who escaped the White Council’s justice they’d hate me on principle – assuming that Wizard Pietrovich didn’t want me dead just for having met the embarrassment to his name that was Justin DuMorne. I was basically the least likely person on planet earth to be welcome in a crowd of Vampire murdering badasses, especially after I’d volunteered them for a war with the Red Court without any prior notice. I’d at least earned a sign post on the front lawn with the words “screw off Dresden” scrawled in Cyrillic letters.

 

In spite of this, I had always been actively invested in the idea of not going to it. I know, my normal “Dresden” response to being unwelcome somewhere is to bull rush my way into that place, but not going there felt more like a product of my choice than a product of their prohibition. If you haven’t guessed by now, I didn’t have issues with my foster father, I had freaking subscriptions – if not libraries. Archangel was the place where Justin learned how to be a Wizard and a Warden of the White Council. The idea of walking the same halls he’d walked as a matter of choice had sounded entirely repulsive to me.

 

After having spent nearly a year cleaning up the mess left behind by my Egyptian predecessor in the Kingdom of Nekheb, however, conquering my fear of being near anything remotely related to DuMorne’s touch felt more like a historical footnote than a point of personal victory.

 

I know that undoing the mess he’d made of Archangel’s wards should have felt overwhelming to me. I’d spent most of my adult life having nightmares about the night I killed DuMorne and defeated He Who Walks Behind, but honestly – it kind of felt beneath me. Archangel was ancient by the standards of mortal Wizardry.

 

The great tower was a relic from before Russian unification, back when Russian wizards were more worried about Subutai and the Mongol hordes than they were about supernatural invasion. It had later been re-enforced as the White Council built strongholds to fight off Kemmler’s minions, finally converting it into a monster of a nut to crack after WWII. Next to Edinburgh, it was probably the most powerful Wizarding stronghold on the planet Earth.

 

But if I was honest in comparing it to the defenses on Nekheb, it felt sort of mediocre. It was a primitive fortress made by primitive minds and built around a limited concept of human movement. Everything was just so… strikingly human. Goa’uld often spent their formative years swimming around in tanks of water, fighting with and consuming their weaker peers. They thought in three dimensions, always designing their facilities with the objecting of being defensible from all angles and limiting the potential points in ingress.

 

Jaffa soldiers lived their lives with the expectation that enemies might appear from under a cloak of invisibility or some fairy devilry. Humans from Earth, even Wizards, were too comfortably confident of their “predator” status in the predator versus prey dynamic, and it seemed painfully obvious after having spent so much time warring with Chronos. It was a place made to fight wars on foot against creatures that hadn’t figured out how to fly into the stars.

 

Koschei’s path wasn’t hard to follow. The Brute Squad wizards cast light from various charms and foci as they examined the bodies, revealing the true extent of Koschei’s violence. The mad Prince of Winter’s tantrum had left a long trail of destruction and dead bodies.

 

My stomach churned at the mummified aftermath of Koschei’s blade, men and women contorted into rictuses of unimaginable pain. They stood in place where he’d slain them, their petrified corpses still emanating the horrific green energies of Koschei’s blade from the wounds inflicted on them. Black runnels of liquid poured down their desiccated faces, the rotted remnants of their eyeballs.

 

“That’s just… nasty.” Thomas retched at the smell as we passed a particularly fetid corpse. Koschei had apparently elected to kill this victim with magical decay rather than his blade. The man had burst into rotten meat, bones and organs spread across the wall where the putrid flesh ruptured.

 

“Entropy curse.” I replied curtly, the ambient magic still poignant enough that the hair on my neck stood on end. Entropy magic was nasty stuff, rather than destroying someone directly it used magic to re-align probability in a way that predisposed the victim to die. Generally, the entropy involved was more of a metaphorical one, the victim would have a nasty one in a million accident that caused their death. This entropy curse seemed to have encouraged every micro-organism in and on the man’s body to breed out of control – normally harmless quantities of mold and fungi weaponized against him.

 

It was a guess, but my guesses with regards to magic had been growing increasingly accurate as of late. The pulsing ball of belief just at the edge of my consciousness rumbled at my closeness to the new spell. I felt a fleeting sense of excitement at being around new magic worming its way past the mental barriers I’d erected between me and the well of power. I didn’t like that my nascent mantle reacted so positively to entropy magic. Nanami burned the body, her lip curling in disgust at the tendrils of entropic fungi chewing through the stone floor.

 

The Brute Squad Wizards were competent soldiers, but they were hamstrung by my presence. I’d given them my word not to do them harm, but they would have been insane to take me at my word. I was an albatross around their neck, preventing them from moving freely. They were afraid to even talk openly around me, defaulting to coded Latin and keeping their discussions to the absolute bare minimum. Given that I was entirely fluent in Latin and had a firm grounding in the code word euphemisms favored by the White Council, it was an astonishing waste of time.

 

I’d never been overly good at speaking the battle language of the White Council, even normal Latin wasn’t my thing, but I’d read Ebenezer’s missives explaining it in the early days of the war before it had been abandoned entirely. Too few living Wardens had been fluent in it to justify using it as a primary method of communication. Consequently, Lash had also read them and had apparently included the coded battle language of the Wardens in her parting gifts to me.

 

“He’s too confident, Ma’am.” Spoke one of the younger wardens, his face scrupulously looking away from me as he addressed his superior. “I don’t like it. And I don’t like how friendly he is with the vampire. I thought that the Archive brought him specifically to keep the Old God subdued.”

 

“There are a lot of factors at play Warden Pedro.” Warden Nanami replied, her voice a practiced mask of civility and calm. “But I feel confident that the Old God isn’t here to help the Red Court.”

 

“How can you be sure, Ma’am?” Warden Pedro’s lisped “s” sounds and swallowed “h” sounds slipped past clenched teeth as he unintentionally reverted closer to his natural accent. Spain or Portugal, it was hard to tell which.

 

“If the Red Court knew that he was here they wouldn’t have the Black Court know about it. The blood of the Old Gods is necessary for some of their more potent rituals, they would never willingly risk losing it to brood of Drakul.” Nanami replied, pulling a silver key from her pocket reflexively as we approached the end of the hall. She needn’t have bothered. Koschei had apparently ripped the door from its hinges, smashing the enchanted silver device upon the ground. It sparked and spattered violent purple energy against the wall, a caustic pool of shimmering rainbow eating through the marble floor with voracious speed.

 

She pocketed the key, muttering darkly in Japanese, before replying to Waden Pedro. “And we can’t risk them getting him either. The curses the Lords of Outer Night could cast with even a sample of his blood might be enough to change the tides of the war.”

 

“But – but they fed on him already…” Warden Pedro’s worry mirrored my own. Of freaking course, I would end up being the vampiric happy meal version of a fast track to dangerous amounts of power. If Jaffa were the intended food source for the Red Court it only made sense that an ascended Goa’uld would be an outright smorgasbord. I really needed to get back my weapons and armor. 

 

“Yes… hopefully there weren’t any Black Court Elders among them. It seems likely that they were just fledglings bred for this specific assault.” Nanami ran her fingers across a palm sized stone figure of a bear. The head was worn smooth from people rubbing it as she had done. Given that it was the summoning stone for the Wizarding answer to the elevator, I suspected that it had probably been a much larger carving at one point. “But yes… they’re going to be nightmares if the Genoskwa doesn’t kill them before they flee.”

 

“What if they devour the Genoskwa as well?” Pedro asked as he stepped onto the platform with Nanami. The stone circle had no physical connections to the elevator shaft, its elevation fixed in place with ensorcelled pieces of ruby that connected to the walls with thin tendrils of magical power. It looked too delicate to support the weight of our group, but the ramrod sense of pure magic I felt just standing in proximity to them told me how deceiving those looks actually were.

 

Nanami gave him a sidelong glance of incredulity. “Warden Pedro, you’re new to our ranks so I’ll forgive your inexperience. Warden Morgan trains you to hunt Warlocks, not true monsters. But exercise some common sense. Our other inmates were an Old God and the Prince of Winter… the Genoskwa isn’t going to die because some fledgling vampires. They’ll possibly wound him, but a primal beast of the Forest is heartier prey than you suppose him to be.”

 

She spoke a nonsense word that must have been the magical command to activate the lift, and we plummeted down at break-neck speed. By all means we should have left the ground if not for enchantments affixing our feet to the stone. Thomas whooped excitedly, grinning from ear to ear – his face flushed from adrenaline and his eyes shimmering silver pools. “Oh, hell yes!”

 

I was somewhat less thrilled about the ride given my own state of undress - The tapestry I’d been using to cover myself whipped up and into my face, forcing me to grasp at it to keep it from flying up as we plunged down the stone tower. Thank god it was summer – I don’t know if I would have been able to tolerate a Russian winter without pants.

 

The silver doors on each level of the lift transpired to be transparent from the inside, presumably to protect the Wardens from ambush. If that was part of the spell spoken by Nanami or a side effect of the key she held I couldn’t say for sure, but it was deeply useful under the circumstances. It allowed me to assess exactly how collectively screwed we were as the lift fell down.

 

I caught glimpses of the battle as we whipped down the great spire of Archangel. Brute Squad Wizards and Russian Soldiers were fighting vampires off by the hundreds. Waves of rubbery black bodies and pearly white fangs fell upon the forces of Archangel, overwhelming modern weapons technology and arcane might with sheer numbers. Magic of every flavor in creation was being used by masters without peer, combined illusions and destructive power ripping gibbering bat-like monsters limb from limb. Individually wizards were dangerous, but get them working together and we become a force to be reckoned with.

 

“How much longer is it?” I shouted over the thunderous clatter of battle, flinching as a sorcerous green bolt of something collided with a transparent barrier over the silver doors protecting the lift. “We’ve gone down at least forty floors.”

 

“The keystones are in the subterranean part of the fortress near Simon’s workshop.” Nanami shouted back. “The Archive will have fallen back to it, she was interrogating the prisoners when the Vampires attacked. It’s easily defensible and more warded than anything short of the Library. That’s where Koschei will head.”

 

“Why does he want the Archive?” Asked Thomas. “Other than clearly being totally bonkers. The guy is playing with half a deck at best. I mean – revenge I get, but leaving your enemy to be devoured by a vampire army feels more than adequate.”

 

“He isn’t going to want her dead.” Nanami replied, shivering. “She isn’t that lucky.

 

“He doesn’t want the host, he wants the Archive.” The Asian Warden waved her hand, brining the stone slab to an abrupt stop in front of another set of silver doors broken to pieces and sizzling with the corrosive magics of mordite. Her lip curled in disgust. “Up till now the Archive has been seasoned enough to take him in a one on one fight. Now… now he will likely have his bride.”

 

“Bride?” Warden Pedro practically screamed the word in horror. “She’s not even old enough to have lost all of her baby teeth.”

 

“Hells Bells.” I felt like throwing up. “I know that Kissy face the Deathless has a reputation for not taking no for an answer when it comes to dating but this is extreme, even for a fairy.”

 

“Not if you’re the right kind of monster…” Thomas spoke the words softly, as though afraid to allow himself to be the one who said something that ought to have been obvious. “…not if you think of women as chattel. Get them young enough, break them to your will, and by the time they’re old enough to actually use them they’re too well trained to fight back – it’s the sort of thing my Father would do.”

 

I shot Thomas a sideways glance, knowing all too well that it was the sort of thing his father did do. Lord Raith maintained his dominance over the daughters of his house by pitting his hunger against theirs, forcing himself upon his children both in both the physical and metaphysical sense of the word. Thomas didn’t fit his father’s preferred pallet, but he’d been privy to things I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. He’d grown up with many more relatives than I had, but nothing even remotely resembling a family. And there was a frankly horrifying degree of lore surrounding the Winter Prince to support his supposition.

 

I sprinted after Koschei’s trail of destruction, pumping my legs as fast as they could take me. Thomas managed to keep up with me, just barely, but the Brute Squad Wizards weren’t even close to being able to match our raw speed. Human endurance can only go so far, and neither of us was so limited. My muscles didn’t burn as I forced them to move faster, though I knew they ought to be burning with exertion. Instead there was a purity of purpose to my movement that felt almost independent from any sense of physical limitation. There was a little girl to save from a monster – nothing else mattered. The well of belief thrummed in anticipation tendrils of power caressing my mental barriers in loving anticipation of what was to come.

 

“Do we have a plan?” Thomas asked.

 

“Kill the bad guy. Don’t die while doing it.” I replied.

 

“No, I mean a good plan.” My brother shook his head. “You know, the kind we survive.”

 

“Keep the bastard busy long enough for the Archive to do whatever it is that she’s planning.” I shrugged. “She captured him the first time, I figure she knows how to do it again if she needs to.”

 

My vampiric half-sibling massaged his forehead with the heel of his palm. “You’re gambling your life on someone who hates you having a plan to kill your enemy?”

 

“Well, technically I’m gambling your life.” I sighed, massaging my recently twice severed neck. “I’m reasonably certain I can’t be killed by conventional means.”

 

“Good for you.” My brother replied acerbically, though not altogether without mirth. He seemed to have accepted my ruse of fairy godmother remarkably well. It wasn’t entirely fair of me to play off of my brother’s loneliness, or for me to appeal to our shared connection with Margaret LeFay. He’d been so isolated for so long that even the poisoned word of a Dark God was enough for him to play along, at least in the short term.

 

Koschei had done a number on the prison, breaking open the cages of some creatures and slaughtering others without apparent rhyme or reason. I don’t remember if I was even consciously casting the magic that ripped the ghoul in half when the half-starved beast flung itself at me, but I do remember snapping my fingers to set the two halves of the ghoul on fire. Thomas’ eyes darted to the roasting monster and back, only registering the threat after I’d dispatched it.

 

It was the shared noise of gunfire and cruel laughter that let me know we’d found him, the rumbling rata-tat-tat of Kalashnikov’s growing quieter and quieter with each horrified scream as Koschei slew the Russian Soldiers. I held up my had to stop my brother as we reached the battle, poking my head around the corner to take a peek and nearly earning a shot to the face for my trouble as bullets ricocheted around the narrow stone corridor. Kincaid had barricaded the corridor, mounting a defense with the aid of Russian soldiers and a number of spellcasters. Spellcasters who, to my horror, seemed to be wearing the brown robes of apprentice wizards.

 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. I mean, wizards took their apprentices with them and there were a lot of wizards in Archangel. It stood to reason that when Archangel fell that there had been a decent number of apprentice wizards who’d been cut down in their prime. But I hadn’t had to see the bodies the first time around. Koschei ripped a soldier’s arm, his wizened hands impossibly strong. Bullets pierced his flesh, but only seemed to irritate him as they passed through his body. The soldier surprisingly had enough fight left in him to stab Koschei through the eye before the old man snapped the soldier’s neck, casting him to the floor as he twirled his blade lazily through the air – slicing a fire spell cast by a horrified apprentice wizard.

 

“Archive! Must we still play these games after all these years?” Crooned Koschei. “I’m getting tired of waiting for you to stop playing coy, little bird. Such a naughtly little bird, I’m just going to end up breaking all your toys.”

 

He tutted angrily as Kincaid looked up from over the barricade and shouted. “If you do not back the fuck up I’m going to blow you to hell Farnsworth!”

 

“Bark, bark, goes the Hellhound. And he’s found a new mistress!” Koschei’s lips smacked wetly as he pursed his lips. “Does the Black King know my beloved has stolen his best toady?”

 

“Look moma’s boy, I don’t have time for your shit today. So if you’re not going to take the hint, I’m going to have to make sure the message sticks.” Kincaid aimed a terrifyingly familiar weapon at Koschei that was just a bit too modern for the Fairy Prince to realize what was going on.

 

I, however, was a child raised on action movies. I knew a bazooka when I saw one, and that was a freaking bazooka. I blanched as I got a look at the long green tube in Kincaid’s hands, shoving Thomas behind me as I raised a shield to protect us. We were still thrown back by the concussive force as the rocket propelled grenade collided firmly with the fairy prince, filling the corridor with metal shards and searing heat.

 

Koschei the deathless, however, was no more vulnerable to the bazooka than he had been to anything else thus far. His patchy hair was singed and his already tattered clothing had been shredded and burned, but his now soot-stained body wasn’t any the worse for wear. He stood in place, apparently dazed by the impact, stumbling around slightly as he tried to get his bearings after having his bell rung by the blast. Even immortals got dizzy from time to time.

 

“What kind of a fairy is able to take an anti-tank round?” I groaned, realizing simultaneously how outclassed I was and how few options I had at the moment.

 

“That kind, apparently.” Thomas cringed.

 

“Just grab my head when the time comes.” I sighed, bounding round the corner and shouting. “Koschei! I have come to slay you!”

 

The Winter Prince turned to face me, his ancient rictus quirking into something resembling actual joy as he spoke in his caustic sing song voice. “I don’t play with a cheater, but the cheater still wants to play with me. What to do? What to do? There are so many toys and you’re the only one who would even begin to know how to play with them. But you’ll just cheat!”

 

I sent a blast after blast of fire at him that he just cut in half with his blade, hissing disappointedly as he twirled the mordite weapon. “You see – cheating. You can’t help but try to cheat at this game. And there can only be one cheater.”

 

He stomped his foot as he flung himself upon me, driving his blade through my belly. I grabbed him in a bear hug, forcing the weapon further into me and holding his wriggling body in place with a continuous effort of air magic. He snarled and spun, cursing me as bullets bounced off him. I could feel the projectiles rip through my flesh, but I ignored them – dragging the Winter Prince to the ground. “The game is no fun if both of us are cheating all the time. The game only works if at least one of us is playing by the rules.”

 

We grappled on the floor, our constant wrestling match complicated by the blade I’d firmly wedged in my body to prevent him from using it. And then something happened that shouldn’t have been possible. My eyes met his, and I felt the beginning tugs of a soul gaze. I practically ripped my head off my neck for the third time that day as I spun my face to break eye contact. I didn’t want to see what was in Koschei’s soul.

 

I scrambled away from Koschei, letting the blade pull from my belly and spread starlight across the tile floor as I flung a ball of fire towards the Winter Prince. I was disgusted to have been so close to seeing inside of the monster’s soul.

 

Koschei crowed with hateful amusement as he cast a bolt of green lightining into Kincaid’s defenses. “Yet another cheat! I see why mother has taken an interest in you. She does so despise fair play – nearly as much as she despises me.”

 

“Consider it mutual, you creepy son of a bitch.” Kincaid snarled from behind the barricade, “See how you like it when someone does it to you!”

 

He flung a long metal rod down the hall like a spear, aiming slightly above my head. I grabbed the rod reflexively, instinct more than rational thought leading me to trust that Kincaid’s intent was to help me. I was not the closest alligator to the canoe, and Koschei was one hell of a reptile.

 

I laughed out loud, feeling the sense of unbridled power wrapped within the coiled runes and enchantments of my Wizard’s staff. I slapped the mordite blade arcing down towards me with the haft of my quarterstaff, using the momentum of the deflection to piston the tip of my staff up and under Koschei’s head. The foul magics of the mordite blade sputtered and hissed against the protective rules along my Wizard’s staff, green tendrils seeming to flee from the torrent of furious starlight shimmering out from the smoky wooden surface.

 

I focused my will, using my newly recovered foci to direct my substantial well of magical power into a pinpoint of directed force towards the man’s jaw and shouted the words of power.

 

“Maximo forzare.”


	13. Chapter 13

I’m not good at finesse. Little finnicky magic isn’t really my thing. It’s part of why my illusions are so bad, I just don’t have the right sort of mind for details. I’m a hammer, not a scalpel. You need someone to hit something really, really hard? That, I can do. Even before I got the godlike boost in oomph, I could hit like a freight train in a pinch when I wanted to. And I really wanted to hit Crapsack the Deathless in his smug, prick face.

 

I hated his laugh. I hated his patchy beard. I hated his creepy clothing. I hated his attitude. I hated his stupid sword. I hated his legendarily creepy attitude towards women, including Mab – Hell’s bells, this guy was so skeevy that I was getting protective of the freaking queen of Winter – and especially including Ivy. Hate leads to anger, and anger is one heck of a metaphysical link for offensive magic. And much as I wanted to play the Jedi in my day to day life, there were a couple of moments where a wizard just had to let himself indulge in the dark side.

 

Because a god sized wallop of anger was going to lead to a godly amount of suffering for the prehistoric jackass.

 

Koschei virtually teleported though the solid stone ceiling as the blast connected with a quarter sized spot under his chin. I half expected to see a cartoon outline in the ceiling as pulverized rock rained down on me, ten feet of solid stone turned to dust by the immortal’s sudden change in altitude. I was reasonably certain he’d actually pierced the tower roof judging by the sudden pillar of sunlight illuminating the ground upon which I stood.

 

I flipped him off for good measure. It didn’t do anything to improve the spell, but it made me feel better. Sometimes I just have to do things for me, you know?

 

My brother looked up the hole in the ceiling, squinting at the dull light of the sun’s light through the ensorcelled clouds. “I don’t suppose that killed the pensioner of doom?”

 

“No.” I replied, adjusting the improvised covering around my waist as I leaned on my staff. My posture had relaxed reflexively as my fingers caressed the carved runes and sigils, ambient magics comforting to me in a way no words could describe. I might have been just one step short of naked, but I didn’t feel naked. Not with a wizard’s staff at my beck and call, even as the hissing cries of hunting vampires started to echo through the sudden aperture. Vampires were moving down the tunnel I’d made, their tiny rubbery black bodies moving through down towards us. I pointed my staff upward and shouted, “Fuego!” to send a white-hot ball of flame up the tunnel.

 

Vampires screamed piteously as my magic hit them. I kept the torrent of flame going for a good minute to be sure that nobody got a fresh idea about coming down the hole before I let go of the spell, as Nanami and her wardens caught up to me. I pointed at the hole in the ceiling. “Dickless went on a little trip. Vampires are going to keep trying to get through the hole. You’re going to need to post wardens on it to make sure they don’t get through while I’m talking to the Archive.”

 

“I don’t take orders from you.” Warden Nanami scowled.

 

“Fine,” I replied as hissing screeches echoed down the improvised aperture. “I’m sure that the vampires will wait for us to hash out a proper chain of command. They seem eminently reasonable about that sort of thing.”

 

Nanami’s eye twitched. She swore in Japanese, pointing to four of the men and directing them to stand underneath the hole Koschei punched in the ceiling. She was proud, not stupid. The wizards tossed offensive magic up the tunnel in sequence, frost, fire, fulmination, and force pummeling anything foolish enough to try advancing on us. An additional two Brute Squad wizards watched the hall behind us, ready to attack anything that approached.

 

I turned to where I assessed Kincaid to be behind the barricades he’d erected, cupping my mouth behind my hands as I shouted. “Kincaid, I’m coming in. Don’t shoot me.”

 

“The hell you are.” Replied the merc as he pointed an all too familiar weapon my way, one of the air guns containing the darts previously used to disable me. “You’re already too close for comfort.”

 

“Kincaid – I’m trying to be a good sport about you drugging me, stripping me, robbing me, and trying to kill me. I really am. But if you don’t point that gun somewhere else right now I will take it out of your hands and ram it up your ass sideways.” In truth my bitterness at the man had a lot less to do with him trying to kill me and a whole lot more with the memory of Murphy giggling on the phone in Hawaii than even I was willing to admit. But even external to temporal hoodoo and a number of complicated feelings relating to Karrin Murphy I had more than sufficient cause to want to put boot to ass. The man had tried to kill me. “So, cut the shit before I make you cut the shit.”

 

Kincaid was unimpressed. “Oh, I’m sure you could kill me without much effort. But you wouldn’t get me before the Russians get the other two guns. A single dart from a single gun and you’re down and we’re gone. So… respectfully, your worship, go fuck yourself. I’m not letting you in.”

 

It was as I was considering the merits of fire versus force in disarming Kincaid – Hey, don’t give me that look. The scion was tough enough to take a bit of fire – that a little girl’s voice came uneasily from the room beyond Kincaid. “Let him pass.”

 

Kincaid never took his eyes off of me as he replied to the Archive. “You sure about that? You were pretty adamant about killing him.”

 

“If you disable him long enough Koschei will come back and either kill or cripple him, in the event that the vampires don’t find him first. Either way the red court gets to feast upon an ascended Goa’uld Lord. I am disinclined to discover what that would cause.” Replied the distant child’s voice dispassionately. “Provided that he swears to enter here under a banner of truce and do me no harm, allow him entry.”

 

Kincaid grunted in assent, clearly disinclined to execute his employer’s orders but unable to find error in her logic. “Fine – Warden, give your word that you come under a banner of truce.”

 

I thought about it for a second before I said, “No… no we’re not there. Not yet. Not until we’ve sorted a couple things out that need to be sorted.”

 

The mercenary glared in response. His eyes narrowing to slits in irritation. “Excuse me?”

 

“Uh… Warden. Is this wise.” Thomas queried in a voice of practiced politeness that somehow lacked sincerity, his eyes darting across the many guns pointed at us. “I mean, you might be bullet proof but I’m not.”

 

“I know what I’m doing.” I replied, waving away his concerns and returning my attention to Kincaid. “And I have business that needs to be addressed.”

 

“Well lah dee dah, bright eyes. What business is more important than your survival?” The Merc growled.

 

“From where I’m sitting it pretty much sounds like I’m as dangerous to you dead as I am alive. Right now the only thing that can put you in less precarious position is my pledge not to harm you. And I’ll give you my word. I’ll even play nice. But I need a couple of things first.” I replied, leaning on my staff and making sure to emphasize just how little I cared about Kincaid and his weapon. “Because if you killed my people, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to be friends.” I let my eyes glow. “And I really would prefer if we were able to be friends, Jared.”

 

I put extra emphasis behind Kincaid’s first name, enjoying the brief look of shock at my use of it. Kincaid didn’t exactly go around broadcasting his identity. Even his last name wasn’t exactly common knowledge. I only knew his first name because Murphy had used it over the telephone on their Hawaiian vacation, and I was reasonably certain he wouldn’t have been thrilled that she’d shared it with a wizard. But I knew first hand how damn creepy it was to have a scary critter know who you were, and I felt like I owed Kincaid at least a little bit of discomfort given the past couple of days.

 

“Yes Kincaid, I know who you are. I know what you are. Suffice it to say, I’m not impressed.” I growled, making sure to drag the metallic groans of the Goa’uld. “Now, like I said, we’re going to be friends. And friends don’t kill their friend’s allies. So, are Ammit, Enlil and Muminah alive? Or are we not going to be able to perpetuate this friendship?”

 

“The Old Gods are alive.” Kincaid snorted, arching his brow in apparent surprise. “You’re worried about the mortal too?”

 

“She’s mine. It would be unacceptable for her to be damaged.” I replied, annoyed that he was being obtuse. Truth be told, only Muminah was a deal-breaker, but I couldn’t be sure if the other two were listening. I’d come to like and respect my Goa’uld subordinates, but both of them were responsible for some pretty horrific actions. I regarded them in the same way I did my fairy godmother, they were potentially useful, highly dangerous, and as likely to save me as murder me. Provided that they played nice, I was willing to keep them alive.

 

“Yeah, nude-beach Barbie is still alive. Won’t shut the hell up either.” Kincaid replied.

 

“What proof do you have?” I growled.

 

“You have my word.” Replied the Archive. “I will not indulge in any other proof until you’ve given your pledge.”

 

“I will to speak with one of them.” I rejoined. “This is not an indulgence, it’s a necessity. The last time I showed up to a meeting trusting in someone’s word I ended up naked and trapped in a magical prison.”

 

The Archive was silent for a pregnant moment before she replied. “Very well. But only the mortal.”

 

“Only the mortal.” I agreed.

 

There were several shuffling noises behind the barricade and some rather frantic discussions between the Archive and the Russians. I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but I got the sense that whatever the Archive was saying didn’t particularly please the Russians. There was a brief flash of light and the smell of ozone as someone cast a spell, and the sounds of complaints died away entirely. The Archive was nothing if not efficient in conveying her message.

 

There was more shuffling and then a familiar voice sounded from behind the stacked furniture, speaking in the language of the Goa’uld. “My Lord Warden! I knew you would come for us!”

 

“Are you ok, Muminah? Have they harmed you?” I asked – replying in the Goa’uld tongue, as more worry colored my voice than was strictly wise. I’d come to care for the High Priestess a great deal over the past year. She was an odd combination of extreme innocence and great worldliness that I would be deeply grieved not to have in my life anymore.

 

“I am well, Lord Warden. They have detained me, but thus far they’ve limited their interrogation to simple questions.” She paused as though considering her words before saying. “Lady Ammit and Lord Enlil have had no lasting harm done to them. The Lady is robust, and the Lord has merited no more than is due. The Scribe of Thoth has limited the Tau’ri’s available methods greatly – it is a point of great contention…”

 

“That is enough.” The archive spoke over Muminah, her little voice somehow overpowering the older woman’s. “You have your proof warden.”

 

I nodded, switching back from the Goa’uld tongue. “Good. Now for my other condition.”

 

“Which would be?” Kincaid replied.

 

I gestured to my pale, ivory skin. “Fighting alfresco is getting kind of boring. I want pants.”

 

“I will not arm you any more than you have already been armed. Your armor stays where it is.” Ivy rejoined immediately. “I am not a fool, Uncle.”

 

I laughed. “Kiddo, I didn’t say ‘give me my armor’ I said, ‘give me pants.’ I’m naked and it’s a bit chilly down here. You’ve got a whole mess of soldiers down there with you, at least one of them has to have packed a spare uniform in their pack. So, give me pants.”

 

There was another whispered exchange in curt Russian before a pair of fatigue pants and even a shirt crossed the threshold and landed at my feet.

 

“I swear on my power that I will not knowingly cause any intentional harm to the Archive, those in her employ, or those under her protection except in self defense for as long as it takes us to safely escape Archangel.” I replied instantly, feeling the ripple of power run across my spine that came with a magical oath as I reached down to pull the trousers up my legs. They weren’t a great fit, but they were miles better than my current proxy pants.

 

“You too vampire.” Kincaid’s eye’s flicked to my brother.

 

Thomas’ brow furrowed. “You’re kidding me, right? The Archive is the one who invited me.”

 

“She invited you to keep him – ” Kincaid pointed to me, “- under control, not to give him the grand tour. So either give your word or go back to the other vamps. Your choice.”

 

“I swear on the honor of the White Court that I will not knowingly cause any intentional harm to the Archive, those in her employ, or those under her protection except in self-defense for as long as it takes us to safely escape Archangel.” My brother parroted as he pointed at Nanami. “So, does she have to swear an oath too or can we just walk through the damn door?”

 

“An oath from the Wardens will not be required.” Replied the little girl as she poked her head over the barricade, doing her best to look stern as she scrupulously avoided meeting my direct gaze. As always, the Archive’s attempts to look deadly serious couldn’t help but look comical on a little girl’s face. “We are their guests, after all.”

 

She was dressed immaculately in a little blue dress with her hair tied in pigtails with little red bows, her hand holding a thin rod of white wood that I recognized as being a magical implement of some sort. I couldn’t help but smile as I caught a glimpse of the holographic stickers she’d plastered along its length between the arcane symbols of power. The Archive was a near unlimited repository of magical power cultivated over the ages, but Ivy was still just a little girl who wanted her wand to be pretty. A little girl, who for all her practiced look of calm, had centuries worth of evidence in the back of her head to provide her with the exact reasons why she should be terrified of her current situation.

 

The hand not holding her wand was attached to a shimmering silver length of pencil-thin chain that had been looped through Muminah’s elaborate network of piercings and into gilded cuffs that bound her arms and legs. Purple energies bled from her tattooed wards and into the silver links, flashing along her dark olive flesh. The threat was clear – break the terms and the wand would be used on the woman.

 

Thomas whistled, “Sheesh – I see why you keep her around.”

 

“She’s not your type, pretty boy. Keep it in your pants.” Ivy probably thought that threatening my human retainer was the measured threat rather than the nuclear option. Probably best not to let the traumatized child start getting an itchy trigger finger. “You’ve made your point, kid. I gave my promise.”

 

“You have, at that.” She nodded to Kincaid, and the mercenary stopped pointing the air rifle at me. “Very well Uncle, you may enter. Warden Nanami, would you be so kind as to lead us?”

 

“Yes Archive.” The warden replied, her Brute Squad wizards providing a barrier between the Archive and myself as the little girl turned on her heel and walked down the stairs.

 

The barricade had been erected in front of the entrance to a wide oubliette. An opulent carpet had been cast aside and the trap door opened so that the pint-sized protector of mankind’s knowledge could come up, but it was readily apparent that even within the greater structure of Archangel’s dungeons the room she’d chosen as a holdfast hadn’t been in regular use. The Russian soldiers seemed less willing to take me at my word, continuing to keep their weapons pointed at me as I descended the narrow stone stairs.

 

The room was clearly one of the older parts of the castle, dating back to an era where things like “safety precautions” were more of a vague suggestion than a strict ordinance. My huge feet had difficulty traversing the uneven steps, awkwardly shimmying along them one step at a time to avoid plummeting down head first. Even Thomas, with his preternatural grace, had difficulty walking them as we followed the Archive. Several of the Russians followed us closely, weapons at the ready. They didn’t bother me. Kincaid did. He made sure to follow behind just close enough for me to know he was there, and know he had a plan to kill me if I was out of line.

 

At the bottom of the staircase was a scene ripped straight out of a Boris Karloff film, complete with pillories, iron maidens, human size cages with iron stabby bits on the inside to prevent an occupant from getting too close to the bars, and what looked suspiciously like a guillotine. Ammit was bound within a pillory too large to have been designed for a human made from iron and stone. Her mouth was muzzled and there was just enough blood on her lips to let me know that she’d earned that muzzle.

 

And there were a lot of Russian soldiers in the dungeon. I didn’t take a precise head-count, but it seemed like the majority of the Russian soldiers who’d been present to subdue me off-world had stuck close to the Goa’uld prisoners.

 

“What the hell is that thing?” Thomas blanched, looking at Ammit. “It’s like a crocodile bred with Hulk Hogan. That thing is horrific!”

 

“She, is Ammit.” I replied to my brother. “And she’s a bit touchy about being called an it, so I’d be a bit more careful with your words.”

 

“Can she understand Russian?” Thomas asked, his eyes fixed on the blood dripping down Ammit’s chin.

 

“For your sake, I hope not.” I jibed. “She’s eaten people for less.”

 

“Swell.” Thomas groaned sarcastically.

 

Enlil was tied to a chair the center of the room, his face a patchwork of cuts and bruises. Ivy’s “limitations” on how the Russians conducted their interrogation were not as comprehensive as I might have hoped. He looked up at me through swollen eyes, looking from my stolen shoes, to my fatigue pants, to my green shirt, and back, before opening bloodied lips and speaking. “Warden… what in the Blood of the Apep are you wearing? You look like a vagrant.”

 

“You should talk.” Ammit jibed back in the Goa’uld tongue. “I don’t think that stain is coming out any time soon. Amun is going to be beside himself arranging for a new wardrobe for you. So many servants are going to lose their minds re-fitting you in proper attire.”

 

“Nor should they. A god must always leave his mark.” Enlil replied.

 

“You left a mark alright. You left red all over that Tau’ri’s fist.” Ammit snorted.

 

“He’s going to be incredibly sore tomorrow. So, who’s the real victim? Not I.” Enlil replied, clearly delirious repeated head trauma. “Serves them right for interrogating me without having anyone who speaks my language properly. I couldn’t give them a decent answer even if I wanted to.”

 

I arched my brow and regarded the archive. “You don’t speak Goa’uld.”

 

“I do – unfortunately when some people decide that they’re going to try to limit my access to interrogations.” She shot a frosty look to a slightly singed looking Colonel. The one she’d zapped before, I presumed. “It limits my ability to aid in such ventures.”

 

“You’re being awful glib about torturing one of my retainers.” I replied.

 

“You’ve tortured the majority of your retainers in your employ at some point, Uncle.” Ivy’s little face scrunched up in dismissive consternation. “I fail to see why using the methods you taught would be anything other than business as usual.”

 

I sighed. “Yeah, about that Uncle thing. I’m actually not Heka.”

 

Ivy rolled her eyes in a way that didn’t quite work on a six-year-old but might have passed on a woman of thirty. “Uncle, you and Father designed me to be able to tell you both from all other Goa’uld. The Archive can detect the blood of its creators.”

 

“Oh, no – I believe that entirely. I’m sure I’m setting off your godometer but I’m not Heka. I’m the one who possessed his body and consumed his soul.” I replied in a matter of fact tone. “It’s why I can use all of his wards.”

 

“And you have proof of this?” Ivy’s brow arched.

 

“Look, I’d offer a Soul Gaze but I don’t think that either one of us wants to see what’s in each other’s head. Honestly, I’m not sure what kind of proof that would even give us given that neither one of us would be using the same host body and host soul that would have been relevant if, and when, Heka soul gazed your ancient predecessor.” I scratched the back of my head in thought. “And I can think of a thousand loopholes to any oath I could offer that I am who I claim to be.”

 

“I would accept your True Name.” Ivy replied. “So that I might invoke it.”

 

Oh, hell no. Even if I trusted Ivy entirely, I wasn’t going to give her my name. Ignoring the simple logistical issue of letting the Wardens know who I was, there were some relatively horrific things that an even mediocre spellcaster could do with someone’s true name if they wanted to. Ivy wasn’t mediocre. “I… don’t believe that would be wise under the circumstances.”

 

And then it occurred to me. “But surely you knew Heka’s true name? The name invoked to summon your Uncle.”

 

Ivy nodded, understanding. “I could invoke his name… yes, you’re not fully complete but you’re empowered enough for a simple summoning. Certainly, at this distance it could be done.”

 

The little girl pulled chalk from her dress and drew a symbol upon the ground, a coiled snake around a lidless eye atop a pentagram. Her eyes flashed and there was suddenly an opaque bubble around her head. It allowed neither sound to leave it, nor a clear enough lip-read to determine the words she as spoke them. She held her hand to the circle and spoke within her bubble, the spell causing her tiny wand to glow crimson as she invoked Heka’s true name.

 

I wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing with the name. There were any number of things one could do with one, not the least of which was summoning them. For beings of spirit this meant being torn across time and space to answer the call. For corporeal entities this was a more metaphysical process – one summoned a shade or an aspect of a person. My followers had not yet summoned me. A combination of not knowing my true name and my own reticence to allow my mantle control had shielded me from that inconvenience thus far. Bob assured me as a corporeal entity, only my shade could be summoned, but I was still not thrilled about the idea.

 

And while the thing Ivy summoned more than adequately confirmed that I wasn’t Heka – I immediately regretted having made the suggestion. The thing Ivy summoned was horrific, a mewling mass of tortured flesh and screaming agony. Scorched with hellfire and brimstone, a horrific amalgam of a vaguely Dresden-like body parts dangled from spectral hooks – tied together with one long skeletal serpent. A face that I vaguely recognized as my own only covered half of a ragged and bloody skull, its remaining eye darting around in horror as the skeletal goa’uld’s face protruded from the other socket. We got a brief glimpse of the piteous homunculus before Ivy banished the creature, with another wave of her wand. She banished the bubble around her head, little eyes wide as she looked at me with abject fear.

 

“What did you do to my Uncle?” She spoke, terror bordering on admiration in her voice as she addressed me in Goa’uld.

 

“I took everything from him, and gave what was left to Mab to do with as she wished.” I replied in the tongue of the Old Gods. I presumed that Lash had arranged the particulars of Heka’s disposal but Mab had not simply disposed of Heka’s soul when she’d taken it. Wherever Heka’s fragmented soul was, it was most decidedly not a nice place. I was not overly thrilled to realize that she’d also taken parts of my own in the process. “Given his habits I felt it was ultimately for the best.”

 

“This puts me in an awkward place.” Ivy replied. “In my role as Archive I was permitted to subdue my Uncle for violating the Terms. If you are not my Uncle… then I am unable to use my position. Mab was entirely aware of this. I have overstepped in my role. Loathsome though I find your kind, you are not my purview.”

 

Ivy turned to Nanami and Kincaid, switching back to Russian so that she could be understood. “There has been a grievous error. Mab exploited a fault in Heka’s design of the Archive to mislead us. This is not Heka. I was misinformed. This extends beyond the limits of my office.”

 

“You were misinformed – You?” Kincaid blinked a couple of times as the idea of the Archive being wrong sunk in. “Oh, hell – this is going to be a nightmare.” He looked around at the armed Russian soldiers surrounding us. “Honey, you’d better be really sure about this.”

 

“I am.” The Archive nodded to Nanami. “You will free them and return their weapons.”

 

“Nyet, you will do no such fucking thing.” The singed Colonel held up a pistol in one hand, pointing it directly at the child’s head, and a dart rifle in the other, pointing it at me. He was shouting so that the small army of Soldiers could hear him. “I have lost men’s lives on this expedition. I have orders. Our government was promised payment and I will be taking the Goa’uld back for debriefing and analysis, even if I have to do it over your corpses.”

 

And there we stood, outnumbered ten to one in a room too small for them to miss.

 

Hell’s bells.


	14. Chapter 14

Power flared along my staff as I readied myself to strike the Colonel when a woman’s hand pressed on my arm, Muminah. Her lips were narrowed and her eyes pleading as she looked to the corner. “Warden – I know you could strike them down, but I fear that there would be consequences.”

 

I followed her gaze back to a corner of the oubliette where a small cluster of brown robed kids were standing together. Good, I was pleased that at least some of the apprentices were still alive. There were five of them, four girls who looked to be of tweeish to late teenage years and a boy who might have been sixteen or so. Some of them were even far along enough in their training that I saw signs of rings and bangles that might actually have been useful in a fight. Some, but not all of them looked old enough that they could probably cast a shielding charm. If there was a firefight in this space, some of them would die.

 

Muminah pleaded for the safety of her captor’s children. “My lord. Have mercy. These men only know the god you cast down from heaven, not the god you’ve become.”

 

Hell’s bells – how did things keep getting so twisted? If I actually ended up in a fight with the Russians, I didn’t even have a reasonable guarantee that the Wardens would be on my side. Sure the Archive was saying “let them go” but if I started trying to axe mortals, deal or no deal, the wardens weren’t just going to watch that happen. And while I’d made my promise not to harm the Wardens except in self-defense, Nanami would probably consider defending her guests to be an obligation.

 

And honestly… I just didn’t want to have to kill these guys. The Colonel clearly didn’t have a clue how far in he was over his own head. He was way in the supernatural deep end and just treading water to keep himself from drowning in exactly how screwed he was. These guys were just working stiffs fighting for their country, they had their orders and they’d fight to the death to accomplish them.

 

“How much am I going to have to pay you?” I asked, addressing the Russian.

 

“Excuse me?” The Colonel replied, an irritated edge to his voice. “You’re trying to bribe me to betray my country.”

 

“No, I’m trying to offer you a much more profitable deal than dying in a dark hole to be fed upon by the ghouls that I’m positive the vampires brought with them.” I replied dryly. “This is a no-win scenario for you buddy. If you manage to knock me out, kill the Archive and her bodyguard, and even if the Wardens let you do that to their guests, you’ve still got a vampire army coming aaaaannny second now.”

 

I help my hand up to my ear, miming listening as the sounds of the battle wizards above the oubliette echoed down horrifyingly. The screams of vampire warriors were growing louder and louder as the army advanced through Archangel. “And unless someone who knows how to take down the wards for this place - someone like me by the way – you’re going to have to fight an army of thousands with…. What, a few dozen? Those don’t feel like good odds to me even without the whole ‘near unkillable’ aspect of vampires. Warden Nanami, what’s the attrition rate on even seasoned vampire hunters? I mean the really good ones? They kill maybe a couple hundred vampires before they die.”

 

“Some of them get into the thousands over a lifetime.” Nanami replied, her face inscrutable as she held the hilt of her blade. “But that’s with support and planning. Only a fool attacks vampires from a point of weakness. And we are not in a point of strength.”

 

“I figure each of you are probably serious badass types. So, let’s say that each of you manages to survive this. You each take out two hundred vampires before you die.” I made a show of counting each of them, even turning my back on the Colonel briefly to show how little of a threat he represented to me. “Yeah… that’s not going to be enough. I mean, you guys are good enough to get the drop on even me but we’re on Alamo time here. And Santa Anna is knocking.”

 

“You’re going for regional Texas history for your metaphors to enraged Russians?” My brother whispered in confusion. “Calling him an American? Are you trying to piss this guy off?”

 

I ignored Thomas. “Alternatively, I can take down the wards, we can open a way out of here, leave, and I can just give you something more valuable than two Goa’uld. If what you need is medical data on them, I can just give that to you without requiring what I presume would be the vivisection of my subordinates as a bonus.”

 

The Colonel shook his head. “I have read the American’s reports. The word of the Goa’uld is not to be trusted.”

 

I snorted. “You do realize the inherent absurdity of a Russian Officer informing me of how he’s going to take the word of the American military at face value.”

 

The Colonel stopped pointing his weapon at the Archive, though he continued to point the rifle at me. “And I am to trust you because the Americans do not?”

 

I snorted. “I don’t expect you to trust me, but the offer of something beats the combined offers of nothing and a horrible death.”

 

“And what do you offer me?” The Colonel asked.

 

“Well, I’m going to start by giving the Archive enough gold that Kincaid agrees not to find you and murder your and your entire family for having pointed a gun at a six-year-old girl in his care.” I nodded to the Mercenary who was giving the Colonel a truly murderous glare. I was sure that the Colonel hadn’t seen the Archive issue a command to Kincaid with sign language, presumably the only reason he hadn’t shot the man already. “Because I’ve seen the man’s fees for killing people he doesn’t want dead, and I’m entirely sure you can’t afford the cost of paying him to defer killing someone he does.”

 

“Damn right he can’t.” Kincaid smiled wolfishly it a way that actually made the Colonel flinch.

 

“I’ll give you medical information on symbiotes. Hell, I’ll give you symbiotes.” I’d been trying to think of any use for the tank full of Moloch’s children we’d taken in the previous month other than target practice anyway. We hadn’t just killed them outright just in case we started running short of symbiotes as the war progressed, but both Ul’tak and I were mutually reluctant to have anything that had touched Moloch inserted into my armies. None of my Jaffa wanted to risk the spiritual taint of raising Moloch’s children within them, and I didn’t blame them. “I’ll give you as many symbiotes as you want, provided that you promise that you’re planning to kill the damn things. You don’t want any of them in a host.”

 

“You offer me your own people?” The Colonel replied in slight disgust, though not disinterest.

 

“Da comrade.” I replied. “Do we have an accord?”

 

The Colonel swallowed nervously, listening to the screams from above as he weighed his options. I kept my face scrupulously neutral, praying that he made the smart choice. “Don’t be dumb. Take it, take the deal.” I repeated to myself on a loop in my head. “Please don’t be dumb.”

 

And then, for once in my miserable life, someone actually chose to do things the easy way. “We have a deal, Lord Warden.”

 

And then, quick as a snake, a form blurred across the room to sock the Colonel squarely in the nose. The Colonel fell to the ground, swearing profusely as Kincaid held a gun to the back of his head. The Mercenary looked around at the Russian soldiers, holding his rifle at them as he held his gun to the back of the Colonel’s head.

 

“Kincaid!” The Archive shouted. “The wergild from the Warden will be sufficient. Do not do that man permanent harm.”

 

The Mercenary stood up from the Colonel, kicking him “accidentally” in the ribs as he did so. “Hey, he’s paying me not to kill the guy. Nobody said anything about roughing him up.”

 

The Colonel shouted to his soldiers as they aimed their weapons at us, spitting out blood as he shouted. “Do not fire. Not without my order.” He stood up, wiping the blood from his clearly broken nose. “I will not allow you to get the drop on me like that a second time, mercenary.”

 

“Good fucking luck,” Kincaid replied.

 

“If we are all mutually finished trying to kill each other or demonstrate how we are capable of achieving each other’s deaths, I would very much like to go back to the “escape Archangel” plan.” Thomas interjected. “I liked that plan. Still a little hazy on how it works, but I’m willing to learn.”

 

“First things first, Archive, I need my tools and my people.” I turned to the six year old as she bobbed up and down on her toes.

 

“Assuming there are no further objections?” Ivy looked around the room expectantly. “None? Good.”

 

She snapped her fingers. The pillory containing Ammit opened up and the silver chain binding Muminah fell to dust as she walked over to a thick iron chest locked with a heavy padlock. She pulled a key from the little pocket in her dress, a large iron key that seemed comically large in her tiny hand. It spun twice, clicking loudly as the iron top swung up – exposing my belongings to the room.

 

Ammit stood up from the pillory, snarling and snapping as she looked around the room nervously. I was actually somewhat surprised that she wasn’t even bothering to look at the soldiers. She was instead looking at the women in the room, an expression I couldn’t quite place on her saurian features as she looked from woman to woman. That struck me as odd, though not nearly so odd as when Kincaid allowed her to get close to the archive and start talking with the child in hushed whispers. I would have expected Kincaid to interpose himself between them almost immediately.

 

The two of them finished their whispered exchange and Ammit grabbed the iron chest, hefting it up and dumping it’s contents to the ground in front of me. “Get dressed. Now.”

 

“Ammit?” I replied, shocked at the Goa’uld’s abrupt tone. Even in the worst situations she’d never been outright rude to me. She’d always been gruff, and perhaps a bit blue, but there was a spiteful immediacy to her tone that worried me.

 

“We’re getting these women out of here Warden. All of them.” Ammit’s contemptuous look up the stairs was the thing of nightmares on her crocodilian features as she spoke in a murderous tone in the Goa’uld language. “Even if we have to die to do it.”

 

“Uh… yeah, that’s my plan.” I replied in Goa’uld, stripping out of my Russian hand-me-downs and into my battle armor.

 

“Not your plan, Warden. Your plans go to shit. This is my plan, and we’re sticking to it.” Ammit pulled a goa’uld healing device from a leather satchel among her belongings as she walked over to Enlil. “We aren’t fucking this up Warden. They all go home tonight. All of them.”

 

Stars and stones – what had I done wrong this time? Ammit was probably the second or third most female I’d ever met in my entire life who I felt closest to understanding her mindset, and I was still as lost with her as I’d ever been with Elaine or Susan.

 

“Let it go Warden,” The archive spoke, following my confused gaze. “We have take down the wards. Once we can get into the Nevernever, we’ll be safe from the Vampires and Koschei.”

 

“The vampires I get.” I replied, my voice modulating as I placed the helmet over my head and acclimatized myself to the heads-up display. “But isn’t he a prince of Fairy? I never knew one of their royalty to have much trouble navigating the Nevernever.”

 

Ivy tilted her head, scrunching up her little nose in thought. “You are simultaneously one of the most well and poorly informed individuals I’ve ever met.”

 

“It’s a talent.” I replied. “But seriously – Fae nobility can bend the ways of the Nevernever over their knee and make them beg for mama. He’ll be on us in a second.”

 

“Warden, Koschei is forbidden to ever step foot in the Nevernever. He has been banished by his mother.” Ivy replied as though it ought to have been common knowledge. “And given that the Scion chose his father’s path, it’s not entirely accurate to call him Fae.”

 

“Koschei is a mortal wizard?” I replied in bafflement.

 

“Hardly.” Ivy twirled her wand. “Koschei was born in the early days of this world, long before mortals were a relevant concern.”

 

“Learning what the hell that actually means is going to cost me a fortune, isn’t it?” I sighed. “More than you would be obligated to provide due to our little issue of mistaken identity?”

 

“Infinitely.” The Archive agreed, smiling eerily. “Shall we see to taking down the wards?”

 

“Yes.” I agreed, looking over as Ammit used the hand device upon Enlil. The man was apparently starting to recover enough to go back to cursing his luck to have ever met me. That was a good sign, if he was healed enough to be annoyed at my existence he’d soon be back to his normal, irascible self. “I assume that you know how they work? I’ve never met a Wizard who could resist writing down his warding plans.”

 

“Obviously.” The little girl replied.

 

I looked around the room, identifying the five keystones set into the walls of the pentagonal oubliette. They were unremarkable bits of marble, made in a time where the idea of decorating one’s wards would have reeked of unnecessary ostentation. They were the sort of brute force wards that one could only manage when one plugged them directly into the local ley-lines. And while there were centuries worth of protections built up from the five primary wards to prevent people from getting close enough to touch them, once the five keystones went down, the rest would just crumble. It’s one of the major reasons that Wizards don’t actually let people visit their sanctums unless they implicitly trust them, once you’re inside the threshold of a warded building it’s too damn easy to break them if you understand how they work.

 

“I’ll hold back the protective magics if you can disconnect them from the leyline.” I said, walking up to the nearest keystone and putting my hand on it. Warden Nanami’s eye twitched at the laughable ease with which I manipulated the centuries old warding magics, placing my armored hand on the bare stone when at least three spells ought to have flensed me to the bone. But I knew these wards too well for them to impede me. They were bigger and badder versions of the wards I’d used on my apartment in Chicago, but they were just upsized not different. In a pinch I could shut down the wards for my apartment in a matter of minutes. And while I was dealing with a jumbo-sized keystone for Archangel, I had a god sized pool of power to make a key nowadays.

 

Ivy and I made short work of the five stones, between my magical strength and her knowledge we’d cracked four of the five stones faster than I’d even expected us to do so. By the time we got to the fifth, Enlil was armed and standing as close to me as he dared while we were in progress. His clothing was stained with blood, but he was otherwise undamaged.

 

It was as the fifth stone dropped that the battle wizards we’d left to hold off the vampires retreated beneath the trap-door, bolting it shut as they screamed a warning to those of us below as Koschei’s mordite blade pierced the wood, rotting it away. The Russian soliders opened fire, peppering the Prince of Winter with bullets as he ripped through the despoiled timber, cackling like a madman.

 

To their credit, the wardens tried to engage him in swordplay. Their ensorcelled blades glittered through the air as they used spell and steel to try and prevent the implacable monster of Winter from advancing, but to little effect. Their blades pierced him, but did not wound him. Their spells sloughed across his skin as though they’d never touched him. And all the while he laughed.

 

The wardens charged to aid their compatriot, led by Warden Nanami, but even as a group the Brute Squad was no match for the ancient horror that was mother Winter’s bouncing, baby boy. It was as the sixth warden died that I realized two things. The first was that Koschei, had only been killing the men. The second was that rather than charging him as I would have expected to, Ammit had placed herself between Koschei and the apprentice wizards, holding up a Kara’kesh in one hand and shaking in what I could only describe as uncontrollable fear.

 

Ammit was terrified of Koschei. Ammit wasn’t terrified of anything. Ammit hadn’t even been scared of the Shoggoth. She’d been worried, perhaps even resigned to her fate, but the Eater of the Dead never allowed herself to show any sign of fear.

 

Apparently almost never.

 

I couldn’t help them, not while I was holding back he keystone’s offensive magics from Ivy, so I was forced to watch as Koschei slew all but three of the Brute Squad – all but the three women. When he pulled the sack from his waist my eyes went wide as I was helpless to stop him from pulling the sack over the head of first one woman, then the next. The apparently magical vessel consumed the women whole, sucking them into a swirling black vortex as he dropped it over their heads – taking them blade and all. Nanami cast fire, screaming in horror as he sucked her into his leather bag, bouncing it on his palm before advancing on Ivy and me.

 

The Hellhound was having exactly none of that.

 

I don’t know where Kincaid got the chainsaw from. I certainly hadn’t seen it when I got here, nor could I begin to tell you what he used to make the oil burning along its surface glow purple, but apparently the whirring, burning saw-teeth at least managed to hurt Koschei as the Hellhound came out of nowhere, and ran the chansaw up Koschei’s body from the groin upwards from behind. The Prince of Winter howled in agony, dropping his blade and the sack as his body split in half.

 

My brother dove for the bag, only for it to disappear as his fingers tried to grab it. Ammit used her Kara’kesh to fling one of Koschei’s halves across the room, stomping up and down on the other half with all her weight as she screamed incoherently – doing her best to annihilate Koschei’s face, “No more! You don’t get any more. Never again! Never again.”

 

“Warden – I need to be the one to open the way.” Ivy spoke concisely as the final keystone fell.

 

“No!” I disagreed emphatically as the two halves of Koschei melted, reforming into black shadow-things that flew into the air – skeletal wraith things that started slaughtering the Russian soldiers with gleeful laughs mirroring Koschei’s own. It was a god damn slaughter house, “You’d have to be the last one through.”

 

“I know of the only safe path from this Archangel. If you open the way we could end up anywhere, and randomly entering the Nevernever could put us in more danger.” Ivy disagreed. “It has to be me.”

 

“Damn it, just do it kid.” I replied, tossing force at one of the wraiths as it devoured a Russian man whole before cursing myself for not having realized that the other wraith had Koschei’s bag out and was snatching up the women.

 

Ammit actually flung the Apprentice wizards through portal as Ivy opened it, clawing away the wraith as it tried to shove them into the bag. She managed to get three of them through, two of the girls and a boy, before the second wraith snatched up the older girls.

 

I swore, interposing myself between Koschei and my brother as the cackling monster reconstituted himself from the shadow monsters and tried to cut him in half. My staff hissed and crackled against the deathstone, my will alone preventing the deathstone from destroying my foci. The monster of Winter licked his rotten lips. “I’m growing bored of this game, Cheater. You have only so many toys for me to break before you have no choice but to give me my prize.”

 

“I’m going to make you an offer, Koschei. Just one. You’re going to let those women go. You’re going to forswear any claim you have on the Archive, and you’re going to spend the rest of your life in exile. Because if you don’t, I’m going to find you and I’m going to make you wish you had.” My eyes glowed through my visor, even as my armor’s HUD screamed warnings to me about the presence of mordite.

 

“Ooooh. Scary.” Koschei crowed mockingly, “Going to throw me through another wall?”

 

“Fuck no. I’m going to kill your ass dead.” I went with the momentum of his blade, spinning my quarterstaff around to pull his legs out from under him and clock him in the chin. “And then I’m going to sing a song over your grave.”

 

I aimed my foci at his prone body only for him to dissolve into black smoke again, appearing behind me and slashing at my back with his mordite blade. My armor held against the weapon, but I was tossed to the ground painfully. I spun around to stop his decapitating blow, only for Koschei to suddenly fly through the air to crash into the wall behind me. The Archive’s hand glowed purple as she waved to me, the way she’d opened into the Nevernever closing rapidly. Apparently she and I were the only ones still within the Oubliette other than Kincaid.

 

“Lord Warden, get your ass in gear or we are leaving you.” Snarled the mercenary. “He can’t step into the Nevernever and I’m not spending a second more on ground that he can actually stand on while he draws breath.”

 

I pointed my foci at the ground, shouting, “Forzare” to propel myself along the ground and through the rip in space and time as the little girl and her bodyguard ran through it. I flew across the stone and into a wooded thicket within the Nevernever, toppling tail over teakettle as I soared into a tree. Dignity, thy name is Dresden.

 

I breathed deeply in relief as Ivy hugged her haggard and injured bodyguard, the little girl giving him a little peck on the cheek in thanks as she holstered her little wand – secure in the knowledge that we were safe on the other side. I let out a long sigh of relief as I assessed the survivors. Three apprentice wizards, four Russian soldiers including the Colonel, my brother, Enlil, Ammit, Muminah and I seemed to have been the only ones who actually made it through.

 

Ammit helped me to my feet, a steely look in her eyes as she said. “We need to go back, Warden.”

 

“We just got here Ammit.” I replied, still feeling a bit dizzy. “Give me a second to catch my breath.”

 

“Warden, I’m not leaving those women with Koschei. We are going back.” There wasn’t any implication of it being either a question or a request. “That prick doesn’t kill the ones he takes. I don’t care if they tried to kill us, I don’t care that they tried to sell us, I don’t care that they were going to torture us, Koschei doesn’t get to keep them.”

 

“Yes,” I agreed. “We’re going to go back. But we can’t go back without a plan. We need to figure out – ”

 

My eyes bugged as a flicker of motion moved across the closing portal and I cried out a warning to the little girl that was far too late as the Archive was proved incorrect for the second time that day. A long arm stretched through the closing aperture in the Nevernever, pulling a sack over the child’s head and dragging her back into the real world as the aperture closed before Kincaid even had the opportunity to scream in horror. Koschei had stolen the little girl.

 

I had failed.

 

I ran to the spot where the portal had closed, ready to re-open it and fight Koschei – to chase him to the Earth’s end if need be, only to find myself lifted into the air as a great, hairy, horned beast tackled me from behind, beating me about the head with a thick club. I flung it off of me as braying warriors surrounded us, massive goat men decked out in armor bearing the heraldry of the Summer Court. Perfect, in all the hullabaloo I’d been wondering when Summer’s Assassins were going to catch up with me.

 

“Gruffs!” Ammit bellowed, firing her Kara’kesh into the treeline.

 

What can I say? Fairy timing was impeccably dedicated to being the most efficient pain in my ass possible. I raked my gauntlet across the caprine creature, ferrous materials causing it to howl in agony as it leapt back from me – spinning its club. It charged me again, falling limply to the ground as a military grade bullet ripped through its skull. The Colonel walked up to it and shot it three more times just to make sure it was dead.

 

“Shit… shit, shit, shit!” I backed towards the apprentices.

 

There were dozens of the goat-men in the trees, all of them armed and here for blood.

 

“I don’t have time for this crap.” I snarled, casting flame into their ranks. “Go cross a bridge or something!”

 

“Think of it this way.” My brother interposed as he started firing at a fairy archer. “It can’t get much worse.”

 

It was then that I heard the sound of distant horns. Hunting horns that were all too present within my memories of the night that I’d experienced the Darkhallow. My eye twitched as I snarled at my brother. “What possibly possessed you to say that out loud? Why? Why would you ever say that.”

 

“Eventually it has to be true.” Said my brother apologetically as the massive shape of what could only have been the Erlking rode through the tree-line atop a massive stag. “I mean… obviously not now, but eventually.”

 

“Just…. Just try not to die.” I groaned as the stag’s head lowered and the Erlking lifted his blade above his head as goblin after goblin crossed the tree-line.


	15. Chapter 15

As I steeled myself for the inevitable, for once in my miserable life, something actually went right for Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Rather than charging me and my companions, the Erlking and his goblin hordes descended upon the armored Summer Fae with murderous glee. The caprine warriors brayed in confused horror as they were forced to retreat, galloping away from the Erlking’s murderous minions.

 

Goblins are one of the few cases where the legends got it wrong. Most people think of them as little things, spirits of mischief with a penchant for cruel jokes and violence. And while they well might have been fond of cruel jokes, nothing about either their stature or their penchant for violence could have been reasonably called “little.” They’re like ninjas – from the planet krypton.

 

“Kneel before Zod,”I muttered, as I watched lanky and misshapen monsters hooting and howling into the distance as they chased off Summer’s Assassins. As the Erlking continued to spin his blade above his head, issuing commands to his war party, I realized that I actually recognized the weapon – it belonged to the Lenansidde.

 

“The Erlking… she made a deal with the Erlking!” I grinned as I realized what was happening and shouted to the heavens. “Wildfae… he’s wildfae! Lea you wonderful, spiteful, vindictive woman. I could kiss you!”

 

I put myself between the Russian soldiers and Kincaid as they raised their firearms, ready to start shooting at the Goblin King, I yelled furiously in English, Goa’uld and Russian – one after the other. “Hold your fire – hold your fire, he’s friendly. We do not need this fight.”

 

“Warden… do you know who the hell that is?” Kincaid snarled in English, his right eye twitching in near incoherent rage as he gritted his teeth together so hard I could hear them grinding from ten feet away. The man was not in a good frame of mind. He’d just lost Ivy, the little girl who mattered more to him than anything else in the world. He was in a killing mood and getting him to “wait and see” was a big ask at the moment. “He’s a sidhe heavy hitter with a bunch of reasons to see me and scales dead.”

 

Ammit snorted. “Why would he want you?”

 

“Seriously? You want to whip it out right now to figure out who’s is biggest?” Enlil hissed in disgust in Goa’uld. “A year of watching the warden’s insanity and now is when you start asking for a fight when he’s suggesting another route? The one fight he isn’t starting, and you’re getting up in arms about it.”

 

“I am disinclined to agree with a Goa’uld,” Spoke the Russian Colonel as he looked at the wave of goblin bodies moving around us. Thousands of Goblin soldiers were marching, marauding, and generally murdering anything not running away from them fast enough. “I am able to count… and I lack sufficient fire superiority to be confident in victory.”

 

“So… we’re not going to die?” My brother asked hopefully looking to Enlil. The Goa’uld shrugged, not taking his Kara’kesh from the closest cluster of goblins, but not actively seeking combat. The ancient Goa’uld was wily enough that I trusted in his capacity to avoid conflict if the opportunity was presented.

 

“I trust in your judgement, Lord Warden.” Muminah bowed, turning back to the apprentice Wizards to speak to them in pacifying tones. She couldn’t speak any languages they understood, but her generally motherly demeanor seemed sufficient to allow her some degree of control over the apprentices.

 

The Erlking rode over to me, stepping down from the massive stag he used as a mount. He was so tall that it didn’t do much to bring us any closer to being eye to eye. He was just as imposing as when I’d first met him on Halloween when I’d tried to capture him to prevent the Darkhallow, all primal strength and hunter’s prowess. But I didn’t feel frightened of him, not just because I didn’t think that he was going to attack me, but because he didn’t feel quite as scary any more. I mean, he was scary – don’t get me wrong – this was still the King of the freaking Goblins, but I didn’t feel compelled to run just by being in front of him in the way I’d felt when first I’d squared off against him. He was out of my league, but I felt like I was a minor league player meeting someone from the majors rather than feeling like I was in little league just after having stopped playing T-ball. If he pitched to me, I felt reasonably confident that I could at least swing a bat without embarrassing myself.

 

I bowed my head in greeting. “Well met, Erlking. What brings you to my neck of the Nevernever?”

 

“It is precisely your neck of the nevernever that has merited my presence, Warden.” The Erlking waved diffidently before tapping the side of his helmet to indicate that he’d heard everything I’d said thus far. “And while you are correct, I would advise caution. The Lenansidhe well may try to hold you to that kiss, Lord Warden. I would advise declining the offer. Historically, it does not end well for the man.”

 

I snorted, Lea’s cruel sense of humor was likely the thing of nightmares for anyone to attract her romantic interest. She struck me as the sort of lover who would make a black widow spider look positively romantic by comparison. “So I’m guessing Lea didn’t like being told she couldn’t protect me?”

 

“Thine Winter Sidhe ally took was greatly aggrieved to be unable to meet her part of the bargain when the Queens of Summer and Winter made their compact so that neither court could prevent Summer’s vengeance. So, it was that she came to me to serve as her intermediary to fulfil her obligations while she was otherwise unable.” The Erlking nodded sagely. “She assumed correctly that I would be a capable intermediary.”

 

The Laws of Summer and Winter were immutable. If a Queen of Sidhe commanded that something was true, it was. So if Mab promised the assassins of Summer that no Winter Fae would prevent their safe passage, it was impossible for my godmother to even try to stop them. But a deal was a deal – and Lea still had an obligation to serve as my godmother – so she’d clearly sub-contracted to someone who wasn’t limited by the will of Summer or Winter, someone with enough power to back it up. But to the Erlking? What kind of price was necessary to move a King of Fairy? I shivered. “I don’t want to know what she traded for this, do I?”

 

The Erlking laughed, a horrible sound that sent shivers up my spine and set my teeth on edge. “Perhaps not, Lord Warden, but the price was less than you might fear. I was predisposed to assisting the Leanansidhe. If I allowed you to fall to the hunt of Summer, I would be robbed of the right to do so myself.” He looked at me with his terrible predator’s eyes. “And you seem such good prey. Would that I was allowed in my role as protector to step upon mortal soil and begin the hunt, but alas – such behavior would be unbecoming of me.”

 

Gulp.

 

The Erlking meant what he said. He was as bound to the immutable truth that guided all fairy speech. He would protect me for the duration of his bargain with my godmother, after which I was fair game. Which rather motivated me to know the actual terms of his bargain. “And for how long, precisely, am I your ward rather than your quarry?”

 

He let loose a raucous laugh, once again a combination of knives and spite rumbling past his misshapen lips and pointed teeth. “A practical question, Lord Warden and one that I would be remiss in omitting from my obligation to your education and disposition. I am your temporary guardian for the duration of Winter’s deal of safe passage to Summer’s agents.”

 

I blanched. “Wow… I’m sure the Summer Queen loves that. Won’t she seek revenge upon you for interfering in her business?”

 

“She is welcome to try, however neither the Wildfae nor the Winter Court would tolerate a reprisal upon me for fulfilling a contract made in good faith.” The Erlking spun the Lenanshide’s blade in his hand idly. “And I am not without standing favors owed by the Queens Summer and Winter.”

 

“Blood of Apep, Warden… is there anything in the lands of Sun and Snow that you haven’t got some sort of history with.” Ammit’s nose scrunched in distaste, apparently the odor of the goblins had reached her. Hell, the smell of fairy blood and goblin sweat had already hit me and I didn’t have a nose half as good as hers. “I’m actually running out of fairy royalty that I can think of who you haven’t wronged in some way or beholden to you somehow.”

 

“I don’t think I’ve pissed off the mothers yet.” I replied in resignation.

 

“Give it time, Warden. You seem to have the right personality to draw their attention sooner or later.” The Erlking suggested as though he were just discussing the weather. “You are… interesting. They like interesting things.”

 

Did I already say gulp? Does gulp have a plural?

 

The thought of actually drawing the attention of the Queen Mothers did scare me. I still remembered having visited them in their cottage. The Queen Mothers of fairy were horrifically powerful, old, and potentially malevolent creatures of the Nevernever. One didn’t ask for an audience with the Queen Mothers of Fairy, one was invited. I was reasonably certain that anyone dumb enough to even try summoning Mother Winter would probably end up chopped up and made into her dinner before they had a chance to realize how bad they’d messed up. The idea that they would find me interesting was… bad. Like, really bad.

 

But shitty as that was potentially, I had more important things to deal with in the immediate. And my horrible, monster of a godmother, had provided me with a supernatural heavy hitter to run interference while I did what needed to be done. “I have questions. Will you answer them?”

 

“I will answer any that would have been answered by your protector, to the best of my ability.” Replied the Erlking.

 

“How did Koschei get into the Nevernever? I thought he was banished.” I waved where Koschei’s hand had been.

 

“A misconception. He is forbidden from ever allowing his feet to cross the threshold of the Nevernever. He may never stand upon the lands of Fairy. He did neither in poaching his prize.” Replied the Erlking. “Though even he is rarely so bold as to test the limits of his mother’s patience by interpreting her prohibition literally.”

 

Fairies – stars and stones I hated them. “Do you know where he’s going?”

 

“Indeed.” Replied the Erlking. “He will return to his holdfast of Buyan, where no Sidhe would dare to tread.”

 

“Do you know how to get there?” Kincaid asked immediately. He was latching on to any shred of hope he had that recovering Ivy was possible.

 

The Erlking regarded him impassively, before looking to me. “Your retainers are bolder than is wise, Warden.”

 

“They’re also asking questions I want answers to.” I replied, “Do you know how to get to Buyan?”

 

“No.” Replied the Erlking, his lip quirking into a smirk. “But you have one among your number who has already been there. One who has already outwitted Winter’s Eden Son.”

 

Ammit flinched as he pointed to her. “The huntress can tell you more than I could ever hope to indulge. And will tell it, I suspect.”

 

“Ammit?” Enlil regarded his contemporary in confusion. “What’s he talking about?”

 

“I… You know that I spent centuries on the First World before Sokar rescued me. I… I wasn’t free for all of it.” Ammit shuddered. “I… I don’t know where Buyan is, but I know how to find it. I know how the Archive helped me to escape it.”

 

“Ammit…” I spoke nervously. While the goddess could hardly have ever been described as a damsel in distress, Ammit had apparently been a prisoner of Koschei – a role that could potentially have meant a great many things based off of the lore, all of the bad. I was not quite sure what the right thing to say even was after that revelation. Apparently Ammit knew me well enough to read my mood, even through my mask.

 

“Not here, Warden. Not with so many ears.” Ammit looked at everyone around her in disgust. “I’ll talk about it with you and the priestess. The scion can know to… he deserves to know how bad Koschei really is. But nobody else. It’s not their business.”

 

“Of course.” I replied immediately, thankful that for once Enlil didn’t say something mutinous about being excluded from my plans. The Russian might have protested were he able to understand the Goa’uld language – but I wasn’t in any hurry to translate on his behalf.

 

I truned back to the Erlking. “Koschei has the Archive. I’m going to get her back. Am I correct in saying that you will help me to accomplish this?”

 

The Erlking nodded. “If that is your desire. I will aid you insofar as your protector’s obligations would allow. I cannot, however, aid you should you ask that I step outside the Nevernever. Should I do so, it would start the hunt, and I would be obligated to hunt you as well as your companions. Each of you is worthy prey in your own right, and I am still the Hunter. Even if I wanted to hunt other prey, I am but one of the great hunters who lead the charge. And though I am the greatest among many, I would not deprive them of their quarry. Still, you hunt old and terrible prey, Warden. And I am always in favor of an Old Hunter who seeks things of great power.”

 

I nodded, I expected the Erlking’s aid to come with limitations in the same way I expected Lea’s help to come with strings attached. “But you can provide me aid. Heck you already are, by keeping Summer way from me. So, if I asked you to open up a way back to chase Koschei and get back the Archive, you’d do it?”

 

“Indeed, though I warn you, Warden – I am a spirit of predators. And while I cannot open a portal near the Winter’s Eden Son as he is cloaked in death’s shadow, I am able to open one near other predators nearly as vile.” The Erlking replied, his eyes full of spiteful joy. “You will have to prove yourself a more able hunter than they.”

 

“Vampires?” Thomas sighed.

 

“Almost definitely.” Agreed the Erlking. “The most predatory and savage among them, of course.”

 

“Finally, something I can just kill.” Ammit growled in anticipation. The goddess practically reeked of unresolved issues that seemed like they were about to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting vampire army. And while I was eager to put the hurt on the Red Court, there was another matter I would need to see to first.

 

“I need to get the Warden’s Apprentices to safety, to somewhere that I trust.” I looked at the three children, watching them huddled together in terror. I couldn’t just give them back to the White Council. There hadn’t been any survivors from the Archangel attacks, letting them go would cause shockwaves in the timeline that I didn’t dare to face. But I wasn’t going to murder three kids or just abandon them to die to the vampires. Fortunately for me, I had a pretty decent place for three kids to disappear for a couple years while the timeline caught up to where it ought to be. “Will you ensure safe passage for these three apprentice Wizards from here to my palace on Nekheb?”

 

“You are taking responsibility for them?” The Erlking queried, arching his brow. “Have they any say in this matter or have you claimed them as spoils of victory? I can do so easily, but I must question if you are intending to set the precedent of taking scared children as chattel.”

 

I blinked – I was so used to just making statements like that it actually hadn’t even occurred to me that I ought to run the idea past the kids. Entire armies moved at my beck and call, three children’s opinions just seemed… small. But they weren’t insignificant, not to the kids. It was an insightful thing to say, I just wouldn’t have expected it from the Erlking. “I… uh… right…”

 

The Erlking’s face crinkled into a gesture that might have been an attempt at warmth, but it didn’t suit him. “It is the duty of your protector to see to your spiritual well-being as well as your physical. It is a poor ruler who doesn’t consider the will of his subjects, even when they have little other choice.”

 

I was getting moral advice from the Erlking… Stars and stones… I was getting good advice from the Erlking. I turned to the apprentices and kneeled down next to them, crooking my neck so that my mask shimmered back into the neck of my armor so that the kids could look at my face. It wasn’t much better than my helmet when it came to humanizing me, but I could at least smile – which was something.

 

The apprentices were basically paralyzed with fear. Everyone in their entire world was either dead or kidnapped, and they were now trapped in the Nevernever with a bunch of Old Gods and mortal warriors who they didn’t know from Adam. Heck, they knew enough to know that the Wardens had been planning on killing us. Suddenly being at the mercy of ancient monsters had to be pee your pants level terrifying.

 

To his credit, the teenage boy managed to hold up his blasting rod at me when he forced himself to stop looking at Muminah’s chest. He was trying to grow a beard but puberty hadn’t given him much to work with, his ginger scruff covering his chin and neck but only doing a token effort to cover his cheeks. As I got closer I realized that even “blasting rod” was probably overly congratulatory. It was the first rod that one learned to make, capable of creating small quantities of flame that were manageable in the highly likely event that an apprentice wizard lost control of their magic. But it was what the kid had, and he was doing his best to protect the pre-teen apprentice wizards behind him.

 

“Do you speak English?” I asked, briefly profiling the kid and making a guess that he was from somewhere in the UK.

 

“I do.” The boy replied nervously, holding the rod at me.

 

“I’m not going to ask you your name, kid, because I know you’re trained well enough that you’re not going to trust me enough to give me any of your real names. So I’m just going to call you Eddie.” I asked, speaking calmly, pointing to the girls behind them. “And I’m going to call them Sara and Jenny. Is that ok?”

 

“Yeah,” Replied the newly dubbed Eddie – swallowing nervously. “That… yeah you can…”

 

“Ok Eddie. I’m sure that you’ve been told that I’m really powerful and really dangerous. That’s true. I’m a very powerful Wizard. And I understand that you are scared of me. But you saw the Archive say that they were wrong to capture me, that they needed to let me go, right?” Eddie nodded once as I continued to speak. “Good. There was a bad man who used to be in charge of the place I rule. I’m not him. I’m a good guy, like the Wardens of the White Council.” I replied, annoyed briefly that I hadn’t seen my stole or duster along with the rest of my gear. The cloak would really have helped with the imagery. “I need to save the Wardens, and the Apprentices. But I can’t do that if I’m trying to protect the three of you. Do you understand?”

 

“We’re going to help.” Replied the girl I’d dubbed Sara, her English heavily accented by what might have been Italian. “I want to help.”

 

“Of course, you’re going to help.” I spoke sagely. “You’re going to do the most important job of all. You’re going to pass a message for me. I wouldn’t trust it with anyone other than the three of you – you understand? It’s top secret, for your ears only. But you have to promise that you’ll go with the Erlking and deliver it to my friend Bob the Skull. It has to go to him directly, understand? It will help your friends more than anything else, can you three do that for me.”

 

The three of them looked at each other conspiratorially before nodding fervently. I borrowed a pen and paper from Kincaid, and scribbled my message to Bob, including the details of what had happened and what I needed from the spirit of intellect, passing it to the boy who held it gingerly – terrified of the important role he’d been given. “Do you three promise to deliver the message? It’s important.”

 

“We promise,” Replied the boy nervously, “If you promise to save our friends.”

 

“It’s a deal, kid. I’ll save your friends or die trying.” I replied, keenly aware that I’d be playing against the odds to just kill Koschei, let alone to save all the people I intended to rescue. I held out my hand to him, “Shake on it?”

 

The kid reached out and shook my hand, a grave expression on his face that felt entirely grim. As our hands touched I realized that I felt a rush of magic running through me, power affixing me to the path laid out before me. I hadn’t sworn that pact on my power, but it seemed that my mantle was imposing the terms upon me as I’d laid them out. My mantle seeped into me, unbidden power invigorating my tired body as the power of my believers rushed to the sort of action that it felt was exactly in line with my divinity. Belief is one hell of a drug – trust me on this.

 

I stood up somewhat shakily, a little afraid to move for fear that the tidal wave of power at my fingertips might rush forth and consume the whole world around me. My mantle wanted to save Ivy, to save the Wardens, the soldiers, and anyone else who needs saving. And truth be told, I was inclined to indulge it.

 

“Take them to Nekheb,” I addressed the Erlking before turning to my brother. I wasn’t entirely sure if taking Thomas to Nekheb was going to make the timeline safer, or doom all existence, but I had to at least offer my flesh and blood the opportunity to avoid the fight. “You are welcome to go with them. I owe your mother that much, I am leading you into almost certain death.”

 

“Oh sure, you offer the vampire the opportunity to get away from this madness.” Enlil griped in resignation. “Not us… not after loyal service. But one of the psychophages? Can’t risk hurting the poor dear.”

 

“I don’t owe you as much as I owe him.” I replied. “A debt is a debt.”

 

Enlil grunted once but it was actually Ammit to ask the question. “Blood of Apep Warden… who was this guy’s mother? You’ve told the Queen of Winter to go take a hike several times but for a debt owed to a dead woman whose son doesn’t know you even exist? You’re offering him anything.”

 

“She was a unique woman.” I replied sadly. “I wish I had the opportunity to know her better, but the question remains. Will you come with us or take these children to safety.”

 

“I am reasonably confident that if I let myself go to your “realm” I’m not going to be allowed to leave it.” Thomas shook his head. “No… I’m coming with you. If only to save those women.”

 

I nodded sadly, I’d lead Thomas into danger before. And while I’d never forgive myself if he died as a result of it, I respected my brother too much to deny him that choice.

 

I turned to the Russian Soldiers – speaking in Goa’uld accented Russian as my eyes crackled with coruscating prismatic lightning.

 

“What is your name?” I inquired, sizing up the Colonel.

 

“Colonel Zukhov.” The man replied, “These men are Vallarin, Kirensky, and Marchenko.”

 

“Well, Zukhov, Vallarin, Kirensky, and Marchenko – here’s how things are going to be.” I waved off his machismo dismissively. “We’re going back to Archangel. We’re going to kill every damn vampire between us and the man who took your people and mine. You can be in my way or you can be on my side – choose now or I leave you to the Goblins.”

 

“I’m not afraid of you, the Vampires, the Goblins, or any other damn thing in existence.” Replied the Colonel, his voice affected by the difficulty breathing through a broken nose. “Wardens were allies of the Russian Government. There is no way they reached the Tower without killing my people. They are enemies of Russia – that is enough for me. They are invaders, they die.”

 

“You mess with me, even once, and I let Kincaid do to you what he wanted to do the second you pointed a gun at the Kid.” I didn’t need to look at the mercenary to know he was grinning from ear to ear.

 

I felt a massive hand on my shoulder as the Erlking touched me gently, more gingerly that I would have thought him capable. “You must leave, Old Hunter, or your ancient quarry will escape you. I would not be pleased for your hunt to end before it has even begun. I will see to your new wards, and slow the agents of Summer. I cannot stop them from pursuing you in the mortal world, but I can deny them the easy path.” His rumbling chuckle was still horrific, but oddly approving. “I envy the challenge you’re seeking, Old Hunter. Good luck, and good hunting.”

 

He waved his borrowed blade across the air, opening up a shimmering tear in the open air that hovered above the seething horde of vampires pouring across the manicured front lawns of Archangel. Their rubbery black bodies didn’t seem to walk over the ground so much as they seemed to just boil over the land, a pox upon the earth itself. There were still wizards in the tower, men mounting a desperate attempt to stymie the advancing hordes. Another Harry might have been focused on saving them, but I was fixated upon the wiry body and sinewy form of Koschei as he fought through the vampire armies and into the woods beyond. He was getting way scot free.

 

Fuck. That.

 

My mantle wanted to open up a can of whoop ass on the horde of vampires? My mantle wanted to catch Koschei and save the girl? My mantle wanted to bring a metric ton of magic to battle? Well, I Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, Lord Warden of Nekheb, God-King of the Thirteenth Dominion of Sokar’s hell, wanted that too. And while there were definitely consequences to using it, there was a little girl in need of saving. A six-year-old child in the hands of a monster.

 

I tapped into the well of belief that had been at the edge of my mind for nearly a year, and jumped through the portal yelling, “Bansai” as I went.


	16. Chapter 16

Magic is mostly about intent. There are a lot of trappings and rituals used to focus that intent and bind it to power so that it will result in a desired action, but ultimately to accomplish anything with magic one fundamentally only requires two things, power and the will to use it. Even a weak practitioner can accomplish some truly amazing things when the chips are down and things get desperate. By contrast, even a Wizard level talent can be unmade by an instant of indecision in using their power.

 

But when a Wizard has power and the will to use it? We can do some amazing things.

 

So when I say that I hate vampires, I want you to understand what I mean. I don’t dislike vampires. I don’t disagree with vampires. I don’t have distaste for vampires. I loathe the Red Court with every fiber of my being. I tolerated the presence of Ariana and Ortega’s forces under the auspices of desperation when my Godmother had brought them to repel the forces of Chronos on Nekheb – but even tolerating them required imminent and active Nuclear War.

 

I wasn’t in an especially tolerant mood at the moment. Hell, I was downright pissed off.

 

It probably boded ill for my responsible use of my powers that the first thing I did with a godly whallop of power was to full Old Testament, but at the moment I was feeling a bit less “Matthew 7:1” and a lot more “Ezekiel 25:17.” And when all else fails in life, I find that fire goes a long way towards solving most of my major problem sets.

 

All things considered though… I probably went overboard on this one.

 

I plummeted to the Earth wreathed in a searing corona of silver fire, my apoplectic screech of rage not so much a specific incantation as a vocalization of the incandescent spite that thundered in my ears. The Mantle wasn’t like Lash’s suggestions or the maddened whispers of Heka had been, this was a pure and primal echo chamber of my own wants and desires. It was like someone took my own thoughts, cranked the volume up to 11 and started pumping them into my own head to the theme of “We Will Rock You,” complete with accompanying stomps and claps. And as much as I hated vampires, the amplified near-Dresden archetype of the Mantle wanted to defeat them more than I could have even begun to imagine.

 

It was like I was in front of a massive crowd, all cheering at once - egging me onward, praising my every action. I felt like I was mainlining a pure jolt of prophetic peer pressure, a simple inexorable mandate to go forth and kick ass.

 

I impacted with the force of a comet, searing waves of argentate scourging the ground in every direction as a tornado of unbidden wind spun the inferno into a protective pillar around me that rumbled with a trumpeting roar of pure spite. It spun ever wider, effervescent incandescence ripping at the vampire armies as my companions made the jump. Ammit came first, landing with a thunderous crash as she carried Enlil and Muminah on her back. She was followed soon after by my brother, his vampiric grace allowing him land with more poise than the goddess could match with her massive bulk. The portal closed after Kincaid and the Russians repelled down through the open air, tethered to the ground of the Fairy kingdoms.

 

I stepped across the charred bones of Red Court soldiers, enjoying the brittle crunch they made as I crushed them beneath my armored feet. Dozens of vampires had been immolated down to their marrow, creating the macabre carpet upon which we stood. Their near-human forms were contorted into agonized remnants of the monsters they’d once been, a smoldering carpet of broken monsters. I idly noticed that the ashes of vampires were billowing out around me in a vaporous cloud of cremains that clawed up from the ground by unbidden magic - giving the illusion that clawed hands and faces were impotently trying to grasp at my feet as I passed them.

 

“Empty Night,” My brother swore as he looked around us, whispering to me in English. “I - I just realized. I can’t let the Red Court see me. My father doesn’t know I’m here. Explaining this would be… awkward. Can you cast an illusion or something?”

 

“No…” I replied, even as I felt the well of power at my fingertips demanding that I try. Using illusions required concentration or a totem of some sort, and I couldn’t guarantee that I could stay focused on my brother’s disguise in this fight. Hell, I might end up with him disguised and dead. “No, it’s better to use more mundane means to hide you.”

 

On first glance however, we were not overburdened with choices for his disguise. Muminah and Ammit were borderline nudists, Enlil would fight tooth and nail before surrendering anything to a vampire, and neither Kincaid nor the Russians had any sort of extra items of clothing that might supplement Thomas’s need for secrecy.

 

Thomas, ever the practical one, found a solution that I would not have sought out myself - but I also didn’t have his intimate knowledge of his father’s vengeance upon those who betrayed him. He dug into the pile of cremains, ripping silk garment from the bodies and shaking the ashes from it. The white court vampire sniffed it once, making a slight gagging noise before wrapping it around his face in a keffiyeh-like mask. He made another gagging noise as he did so, “Oh, that’s just awful.”

 

“You look like a West Hollywood production of a Mad Max movie.” Annoyingly, he still managed to make the combination of post-apocalyptic clothing look as intentional and fashionable as anything else he wore. Stupid vampires, they were always cheating at that stuff. “I can’t tell if you’re going beyond the Thunderdome or somewhere over the rainbow.”

 

“I’ll be sure to click my heels together first - Kansas is sounding pretty good right about now.” My brother shook his head as the white-hot flames started to die. “How did you say that you and my mother became acquainted?”

 

“I didn’t” I replied, smiling wryly at my brother. “I didn’t know her for long. I’ve only spoken with her once, but my father spoke of her often - and fondly. At least he did before he died.”

 

“Heka knew the Vampire’s mother?” Ammit inquired, speaking in broken English.

 

“Heka was not my father.” I snarled, unbidden crimson lightning sparking across the starry pits of my eyes.

 

Ammit sniffed once but didn’t press the matter further. She would likely bring up the topic later, the subject of my identity prior assuming the leadership of Nekheb would be an inevitable topic now that it was public knowledge that I wasn’t, and had never been, Heka.

 

My eyes tracked across the vampire army, seeking out the shape of Koschei moving through it. The scion was gleefully killing vampires on the Southern edge of the property, hopping from topiary to topiary as he killed the hungering monstrosities with child-like glee. There were at least six of the massive Ik’k’oux demons laying dead upon the ground, their steaming viscera poisoning the Earth with noxious shadows. Exactly in the opposite direction of the tower of Archangel and the Brute Squad Wizards I knew to be mounting their desperate, and ultimately futile, battle against the Red Court.

 

I was strong - stronger than I had ever been in my life. Not strong enough to defeat the army by myself, but perhaps strong enough to turn the tide for the Wizards of Archangel. If I tried, I could maybe save them - maybe even turn the tide of the war early enough that we would be able to force a truce before thousands of Wizards lost their lives on the front lines against the Red Court. But I couldn’t - not without risking the dangers of Paradox and not without abandoning Ivy to Koschei’s plans for her.

 

The mantle made the choice for me, before I’d even had the opportunity to wallow in the guilt of abandoning the Brute Squad Wizards. Harry Dresden might have been conflicted with guilt, but the Lord Warden’s Mantle was under no such moral dilemma. A monster had a child, so the Lord Warden was going to save it or die trying. Men were fighting, and dying, for a purpose - who was the Lord Warden to deprive them of that?

 

Under other circumstances I might have found the psychic imposition horrific, but I was honestly just glad to have been given an out. I don’t think I could have forgiven myself for choosing not to help those people, but caught in the addictive rush of the mantle’s will - choice was almost a foregone conclusion.

 

“I’m going to break the circle,” I spoke to my compatriots, alternating between Goa’uld and Russian. “Stay close. Aim for the head or the stomach - if you can rupture their blood supply they’ll die and the frenzied ones will go for the corpse. We’re going to head South.”

 

“I know how to kill the Blood Born, Warden. I’ve been doing it for ten thousand years.” Ammit’s voice was murderously chipper as the oversized Kara’kesh glowed in her saurian palm. “But you know they’re going to chase us right?”

 

“They can’t follow us too far or too intently.” I hoped. “Not while they’re besieging a fortress.”

 

“A fortress whose wards we brought down Warden.” Ammit shook her head, “No - they’re not going to let us go. They can’t let us go. The curse of the First Maya won’t let them. They’re not all going to chase us, not at first, but they will pursue us. It’s in their nature.”

 

“I could be mistaken, but aren’t you the one who spends every free moment reminding me how killing them is in her’s?” I replied glibly, feeling near giddy at the prospect of combat with the vampire hordes with a near manic fixation upon the butchery to come.

 

Ammit snorted. “Warden - every once in a while you remind me why I signed on for this craziness.”

 

“Utterly mad…” Enlil muttered under his breath, eliciting an amused snort from my brother. The White Court Vampire couldn’t possibly have understood the Akkadian deity, but the tone of contemptuous resignation was unmistakable. Enlil’s capacity for complaining transcended the barrier of mere language.

 

They briefly shared a look of commiseration before Enlil realized that he was empathizing with a vampire. He whipped his neck away from making eye contact with Thomas hard enough to make it pop audibly, eliciting a howling peel of laughter from the my brother.

 

“A moment Warden.” Kincaid interjected over the howling vampire hordes beyond the ring of fire. “We need to address something first. We need to discuss the terms of your compensation.”

 

“Now?” I turned to face the mercenary in utter incredulity. “We’re in the middle of an army of vampires, everything is literally on fire, and you choose now to start nickle and diming… did you just say my payment?”

 

“I did.” Replied Kincaid. He was standing at ease, far too relaxed under the circumstances - placid even. “You’re not doing this for free, and I want to know what you want before I let this go any farther. Everyone does something for a reason, and I’m pretty short on reasons why I should trust you right now.”

 

“Are - are you out of your freaking mind?” The mantle’s rush faltered, my well of power continued to empower my spell but the sheer oddness of Kincaid’s utterly misplaced priorities was striking. “If I wanted to betray you I could have thrown you to the Erlking in a heartbeat.”

 

“You never even once asked for payment. Someone who can get a Fae Lord to bend to his whimsy doesn’t do things for free. And if you’re doing something as crazy as fighting Koschei, you have something in mind.” He rose his weapon to his hip, pointing the barrel at my chest. “Or you’re going to claim that she ‘owes you’ whatever you ask - which is worse. So, you’re going to tell me what you want, right now, or we throw down.”

 

The Russians around him immediately started edging away from the mercenary in an effort to clear my line of fire.

 

“You can’t kill me.” I tilted my head in bafflement. “I just literally took mordite to the gut - that thing isn’t going to do much more than annoy me.”

 

“This thing has enough power to take your head off your shoulders, and I’m a decent shot.” Replied Kincaid, in one of the most grandiose understatements I’d ever heard in my entire life. “Killer Croc and nega-santa might take me down, but the vampires will be on us before you’re back in one piece. I don’t think that I’d be able to kill you, but the older vampires? I’m sure there is at least one of them that can hurt you bad enough to prevent you from chasing Koschei.”

 

“But… but that would leave the Archive kidnapped!” I pleaded for some degree of sanity to take hold as I tried to do the math on how to fight an entire vampire army while headless. I knew enough of how the merc fought to be confident that he could make good on that threat, shield or no.

 

“Koschei has been a known threat since the Archive was made. She has contingencies.” Replied the merc, shrugging. “She’s in no immediate threat, not for a couple days anyway. Easily long enough for her contract with Monoc Securities to trigger, you see I’m not thrilled with the idea of saving the Archive from one powerful asshole just to bind her to another. But I’ll admit that I would rather live. So name your price or we do this - right here, right now.”

 

“Oh… crap." I muttered. Kincaid wasn’t just Ivy’s bodyguard. The Archive was just a child, after all. “Bodyguard” was an all encompassing job covering everything from driving her around to getting her meals to generally just taking care of a little girl. He was the Alfred Pennyworth to the Archive’s Batman, complete with all the emotional baggage of being a surrogate parent. My plan to save the Archive couldn’t help but ring hollow considering how recently the Archive had been trying to kill me.

 

Who would actually believe that I was sincere in my intention to save the Archive? Hell - I barely would buy that story from me and I’m me. Goa’uld didn’t save little girls out of the goodness of their heart. Goa’uld didn’t even understand the concept of the heart except in the most mercenary and mercurial of terms.

 

I didn’t want to Soul Gaze him, that's for damn sure. The Hellhound was a contemporary to my mentor Ebenezar McCoy, a murderer of the highest order. His soul, if he even had one, was tainted by centuries of doing things I didn’t even want to imagine. I also hadn’t yet experienced a Soul Gaze since my ascension… I wasn’t looking to break the seal with Jared freaking Kincaid.

 

But what could I possibly tell him that would sound plausible? What could the Archive have, that she would be willing to give me, which would merit going toe to toe with Koschei? The Archive was a repository of all human knowledge, but she could have hardly been called a font thereof. The Archive was famously stingy with the knowledge that it chose to meet out, and even then it seemed to be governed by a set of rules that were never articulated to the uninitiated.

 

And then it came to me - an answer so unobjectionable that I could confidently ask for it without fearing it might break whatever rules were imposed upon the archive - even if, as I suspected, the Goa’uld responsible for its creation had placed limits upon its utility outside of its specific functions. An answer that would be believed without question, god bless the spiteful pettiness of the Goa’uld.

 

“I want her to tell me what the fire Moloch uses for his ritual sacrifices actually is.” I replied, “I want to know why he passes people into the flames. I want her to help me stop it.”

 

I would never forget my horrific first meeting with that loathsome excuse for a god. His treatment of that poor girl wasn’t something one could ever forget. They dying cries of a woman and her infant child tossed into the oven will haunt me till my dying day.

 

I didn’t know the bible verbatim like Michael did, but I remembered the highlights - especially anything that had tweaked as anthropomantic in nature. Moloch’s particular brand of depravity had meritied several mentions in the Old Testament - long after the Archive had been made if Heka was involved.

 

Every world we’d taken from Moloch, every outpost we’d destroyed, and every single place that remained within his desmine all had one thing in common. Giant brass icons were laid out at regular intervals for the purpose of human sacrifice. I’d never managed to get one of them in pristine condition, his Jaffa and clergy damaged them rather than allow them to fall into enemy control, but I recognized a ritual object when I saw one.

 

And rituals requiring human sacrifice? They never lead to anything good.

 

“Moloch?” Kincaid’s brow arched, but his weapon stayed pointed at me. “As in the demon from the Bible?”

 

“As in the Demon God from the bible.” I agreed. “I’m at war with him. I want him dead.”

 

The merc nodded once - only once, before lowering his weapon. “I can’t promise she’ll tell you what you want to hear.”

 

“Guys… Little problem!” My brother shouted excitedly as the ring of fire parted in front of me, warping out and around a cluster of vampires. I recognized the man at their head immediately – Duke Ortega. He was holding a green gem aloft, using the green light coming from it to beat back my silver fire and allow his cadre to pass. His other hand held a long silver rapier that glimmered with blue energy.

 

Oh… this opportunity was too good to pass up. I slammed my staff to the ground, summoning a gust of ensorcelled wind to warp the flames around the Duke’s protective light to blind him as I shouted. “Duke Ortega, I have not seen you since my coronation. How is your wife?”

 

The Duke was suitably rattled by my presence. The Spaniard’s jaw dropped as he realized who I was. He was one of the few people on earth who realized the magnitude of his situation. “Coño… Lord Warden?”

 

“Hi Paulie,” I greeted him with an intentionally insulting diminutive as I raised my staff to eye level and pointed it at the Conquistador’s head, firing a burst of kinetic energy that set him rocketing back through his forces and into the distance. “Bye Paulie.”

 

Ammit didn’t afford his honor guard the chance to regroup as she throw her massive bulk into their midst, grabbing a vampire by the jaws and literally ripping the creature in half. Muminah followed the crocodilian carnivore, punching and kicking at the vampires with more efficacy than anyone of her waifish form ought to have been able. Her ensorcelled tattoos burned and repelled the creatures, holy light as effective as the sun’s rays in close proximity.

 

Our group forced their way through the vampiric hordes, shooting, burning, blasting, stabbing, and punching our way towards the increasingly distant form of Koschei across the grounds. At this point it was only the distant glowing green motes of unholy light from that Mordite blade giving me any indications that he was still even roughly proximate.

 

I grabbed my brother and threw him to the ground as a Vampire soldier tried to open fire on us with a more modern weapon, unleashing a torrent of bullets at my glowing shield. The conclave field of energy ricocheted the projectiles back towards the advancing vampire hordes, slaying several before I immolated the vampire who’d made the attempt. Enlil helped my brother back to his feet, placing a Goa’uld pistol into the vampire’s hand – much to my surprise. Not only because I wouldn’t ever have expected for him to willingly arm a vampire, but also because I couldn’t figure out where the Zat weapon had come from. Enlil always seemed to have weapons secreted upon his person – especially when one thought he was unarmed.

 

My brother held up the Zat and pulled the trigger, sending a ray of lightning into a Vampire. The creature crumpled to the ground instantly. I didn’t need to see my brother’s face to know that he was grinning like a madman.

 

I would normally have taken the opportunity to say something pithy about little boys and their rayguns, but I was too distracted by Aztec blade lodged in my forehead. It was only a “sword” in the most liberal description of the term, an item made from obsidian and wood – shocking in its primitive brutality.

 

I promise you that it hurt just as much as any blade of modern make when it was pulled out by the massive, masked figure wielding it. This guy was tall. I mean really tall, I’m practically NBA sized and he was at least a foot taller than me. But I suppose the huge ceremonial mask goes a long way to re-orienting one’s size.

 

I ripped the shard of obsidian from my face, an eight inch long chunk of stone, and flung it into the still raging near-circle of fire. “Nice try skippy, but I’m made of harder stuff than that.”

 

“You should not be.” The man in the mask wasn’t speaking, his words just seemed to echo through the air around us. It left a coppery flavor in the back of my throat that couldn’t help but taste of blood. “The Terms prohibit your existence.”

 

“I’ve never been particularly good at following the rules,” I replied, parrying his next attempt to gut me with the obsidian blade and attempting to catch him with a burst of kinetic energy from the foci in my palm. To my astonishment, he collapsed in around the blast – his body dissolving into a blood-soaked mess of centipedes and ants that swarmed my armor. I screamed as the wave of insects poured over me, burrowing into my flesh greedily to drink my blood.

 

I was near delirious with pain when Muminah reached me, beating away the insects from me with her bare hands. The ensorcelled swarm fled the light of her tattoos, billowing around the incoming vampires to reform into the masked man. I stood back up with Muminah’s help burning the ground between us and the vampires to slow their frenzied advance towards the scent of my blood.

 

The man laughed with near-erotic degrees of satisfaction. “The Blood… I had forgotten the Blood – it has been so long.”

 

“Don’t get used to it.” I replied, acutely aware that there were sizable holes in my cheeks where centipedes had chewed through the sides. “I’m off the menu.”

 

I suspect the masked figure probably had more of a monologue planned. Ancient evil creatures were strangely fond of witty repartee. But whatever dialogue the masked figure might have intended to use in menace was rather undercut an abrupt collision with the front-end of an Soviet Era APC that came crashing through the elaborately manicured shrubbery of Archangel and into the vampires. Vampiric nightmare or not, 15 tons of Soviet War machine is going to hurt when you end up unexpectedly under the belly of it.

 

The vampire screamed in surprise as he was subsumed in the undercarriage of the vehicle, dissolving into the insect swarm beneath the transport’s wheels. It spun around, opening its rear hatch and exposing the crew space within it. The Russian Colonel and his men rushed for the vehicle, waving us towards it as pair of main battle tanks breached the shrubbery. I winced at the sound as they opened fire on the black-bodied monsters with high-explosive fragmentation rounds, ripping them to ribbons as the shells burst in the air above them.

 

Enlil all but threw himself into the armored belly of the Russian transport vehicle, not even bothering to pretend that he was providing covering fire for the rest of our group as we entered the vehicle. Ammit entered last, her bulk just barely managing to fit into the compartment.

 

“Where did this come from?” I asked as Kincaid slammed the door shut and the transport kicked into gear. “And how did it know where we were?”

 

The Colonel tapped the radio clipped to his vest. “This is the 20th Century. There is no need to fight an army with six people. Not when I have tanks.”

 

His look of smug satisfaction was diminished greatly when he looked out the window only to see one of those precious tanks being ripped in two by the masked figure, newly reconstituted from the swarm of insects. To my horror the swarm was actually tearing the armored vehicle to pieces, devouring the tank’s crew as they screamed and tried to flee it. Their gored bodies tore apart as though they’d been run through a blender, devoured by the swarm of insects that made up the body of the Lord of Outer Night.

 

Ammit followed his gaze and let out an annoyed huff. “You’re not going to kill one of the Lords of Outer Night that easy. Especially not one who has recently fed upon a God.”

 

The Colonel scowled back at the Goa’uld, unable to understand her speech but clearly annoyed at her tone.

 

“Can this thing go any faster?” Thomas inquired in a voice of increasing frustration as the Duke Ortega and a number of vampires on motor vehicles started to chase our APC. It looked like the Colonel’s assessment was correct, the vampires had in fact killed a number of Russian soldiers to reach Archangel. Judging by the uniforms of the drivers, however, they hadn’t just killed them.

 

That was the worst part of fighting the Red Court, really. You didn’t just loose people to them. More often than not, the Red Court would use your casualties to replenish their own. The Russian Soldiers that had been protecting the front lines of the White Council’s bastion against the Red Court were now the newest fledgling monsters of the Red Court.

 

“Yuri…” One of the Russian soldiers whispered sadly as the driver of one vehicle shed its skin mask, rippling the flesh from it’s face to allow the massive, black predator’s eyes beneath their full range of vision. “God above, what have they done to you?”

 

“He’s not Yuri anymore.” I disagreed sadly. “They’re turned. They’ve all turned. They’re with the vampires now.”

 

“… They know everything that Yuri knew?” The Colonel replied in a voice of deadly calm.

 

“Yes.” I replied simply.

 

“The Wardens are going to lose, aren’t they?” Inquired the Colonel as he took in the full scope of the battlefield. There were thousands of vampires and monsters of all kinds swarming Archangel, more than even the council had estimated from their reports on the total destruction of Archangel. How had they missed this many troops? “They’re going to lose and leave with my men as their slaves.”

 

“Yes.” I replied for a second time.

 

The Colonel nodded, apparently having made a decision. He looked at his soldiers before saying, “I am going to activate the contingency. Do any of you wish to lodge a protest?”

 

Not one of them spoke. Taking their silence as assent, he moved to the front of the APC, climbing up to yell commands to the driver that I could just barely make out to be human speech. He seemed to be asking for a more powerful radio than the handheld one strapped to his vest.

 

Bullets railed across the armored rear of our APC as I popped out of the hatch on top of the vehicle, holding up my foci and channeling a wave of force at Duke Ortega’s vehicle. The APC bumped over a log, jolting my aim enough to miss the Duke but not enough to miss the jeep next to his and force his driver to avoid the wreckage.

 

As the smoke cleared it became apparent that the Duke was holding a long something in his hands, but it took me a moment to actually place the weapon.

 

“Hells bells, he’s got an RPG!” I swore, casting a powerful gale of wind as the projectile rocketed towards our transport. The contrail from the weapon arced at a hundred-and-twenty-degree angle, killing a huge smoky-black, multi-armed something that was charging alongside the Vampire’s jeep. The monster howled as the explosives tore though its side, spilling violent green entrails on the ground that bust into flame. Apparently Duke Ortega did not suffer from the myopically traditionalist weapons preference that most immortal creatures gravitated towards.

 

I held up my hand, shouting “Maximo Fulminos” as the ensorcelled red lightning rumbled across the summoned storm clouds. I cackled like a madman as the protective envelope of darkness that the red court had summoned for their own protection turned against them. The red lightning arced down and through my staff, lancing out from my foci in a coruscating stream of doom. The searing lightning scourged at the advancing motor pool, blowing up two vehicles and colliding with the increasingly large cloud of insects that was advancing upon us. The Lord of Outer night seemed to be using the carnage we’d caused to empower himself, working himself into a frenzy of blood magic so that he might overtake us.

 

His advance was forestalled, however, but the howling screech of fast moving engines as ten contrails moved through the roiling mass of red clouds, supersonic darts forcing their way through the broiling storms like furious angels of death. They flew horrifyingly close to the ground, turning vampires to pulp as their guns unleashed a storm of steel and death. The flying beasts of the Red Court make a token effort to slay the vehicles, but they were flesh and bone where the Russian aircraft were constructs of industry and death.

 

The Lord of Outer Night broke away from us and to the skies, forming a cloud of red mist and hideous insects as he allowed himself to be sucked into the intake of two jets. The churning multitudes expanded within their fuselages, ripping apart the delicate components and ripping the jets from the skies to explode upon the ground below. The unfortunate pilots managed to eject mid-air, only to become fodder for the Lord of Outer night to heal himself from the damage done to him by the exploding aircraft.

 

The fighters dropped ordinance on the vampire army, making no apparent effort to avoid collateral casualties among their ostensible allies in the tower. I was yanked back into the APC by the Russian soldiers as we broke towards the tree-line. They forced the hatch shut and spun the lock as they strapped themselves into their chairs, the cause of their worry immediately apparent. A trio of massive quad-propeller planes was moving across the horizon, the thunderous beating of their propellers audible even through the vehicle’s armor.

 

“Oh fuck me…” Kincaid strapped himself into his chair, lashing the bets in place with manic fervor. “That’s a TU-95.”

 

“Should that mean something to me?” I inquired, strapping myself into a chair indicating that Muminah and Ammit should do the same. Neither Thomas nor Enlil required prompting.

 

“It’s a Strategic Bomber. Bombs on bombs for days!” Kincaid plugged his ears with his fingers as the bellies of the propeller planes opened up, unleashing their payload upon Archangel and the Vampire armies around it. One of the Russians slammed shut the view-port as the first explosive touched the ground, the Russian made explosives combining with the pool of sliver flames I’d left behind to form a blinding corona of pure destruction. The entire world sounded like it was coming to an end as the bombers unleashed hell upon the battlefield.

 

I wasn’t able to hear anything as the APC breached the treeline, but I felt it as a concussive wave of force flipped the vehicle through the air, end over end, whipping my head back and forth as it spun through the air. We ended up at an odd angle, but more or less upright, as the APC landed on the ground. The vehicle’s engine, however, was fried. Between having so much magic used around it and the force of the explosion, the compartment filled with noxious black smoke as the engine gave up and died.

 

There was a scream from the front compartment of the APC as something burst in the cockpit, immolating the drivers and forcing the rest of us to disembark immediately as the armored vehicle roasted from the inside out.

 

We disembarked from the smoke-filled compartment, exiting into a world on fire. I half expected to see a mushroom cloud on the horizon, but apparently the Russians had elected to go with conventional rather than nuclear weapons. The tower of Archangel was nothing more than smoldering rubble now, the power unbound from its runes searing across the lands around it – no longer bridled by any sort of existing logic or structure to bid and control it. It would likely kill anything that even tried to touch the rubble for years to come.

 

The Vampire army was only a specter of what it had been, the few remaining troops were in a blood frenzy – feeding upon each other with mad abandon as they tried to recoup for their horrific injuries. Only one of the propeller planes, I noticed, was moving out into the distant horizon. It’s two fellows were only wreckage upon the ruins of Archangel, torn apart by the Lord of Outer night that even now pursued the remaining plane.

 

The battle of Archangel was over – the Brute Squad was gone forever. And not, as we’d suspected, at the hands of Vampires or some horrific death curse. Mortals had undone both Wizards and Vampires with near horrific glibness of action. I grabbed the Colonel by his shirt-front, apoplectic with rage. “There were people in that building, possibly even more apprentices – more children!”

 

“Were you going to save them?” The Colonel replied dryly. “Nyet. We were driving away from them. Don’t even pretend to be interested in their welfare. We would not escape that army, not in time, and the people inside that fortress would have become meat for the vampires. Better to die quickly than to become one of those things, no?”

 

I wanted to disagree with his logic. I wanted to save those people… but no. He was right. Those people were fated to die today. Perhaps blowing up the fortress was the better choice… perhaps. I tossed the man aside in frustration, disgusted with myself for not being able to disagree with his actions. I flinched as the magazine to the APC’s weapons overheated, sending bullets in all directions. My companions dropped to the ground to avoid them, but I didn’t even bother to dodge them. It hurt as the projectile passed through my skull and out the other side, but physical pain had become an annoyance rather than a real hinderance.

 

Was there even anything capable of killing me at this point?

 

Yes, there was. Of course, there was. A single dagger taken from Sokar’s fortress, I was sure the Key of the Dead could kill me. And, of course, I’d given it to Mab. Stellar thinking as always, Dresden.

 

There was a groan of pain from just beyond our APC, behind the bushes. On investigation it transpired to be Duke Ortega. The vampire was badly injured, his legs were broken and his arms were too badly burned to even move them. His flesh mask just barely clung to his face and chest, distorting in pain as the monster beneath screamed in agony. His companions lay around him – dead.

 

Ammit snorted, leaning down to sniff the vampire. She smiled wolfishly. “You smell that, Warden? I love that odor, the musk that comes with the petrified inevitability of ending these things.”

 

She raised her foot, fully intent on stomping the life out of the Duke when I yelled, “Stop.”

 

She paused in confusion. “Warden?”

 

“I need him alive.” I replied. The Duke still had a role to play in what was to come. Killing him here meant that we couldn’t duel a year from now. So he not only needed to survive this encounter, he needed to recover from it.

 

“Why in the name of all that is would you require this monster to continue breathing?” Ammit inquired in confusion as she lowered her foot.

 

The Duke’s eyes bulged with a mix of pain and fear as I let my eyes flash menacingly. “Because I already know how he dies, and I would not rob the Blackstaff of his prize. I owe him too much to deny him that satisfaction.”

 

Ammit arched her brow but consented to let the vampire live. She did not resist the opportunity to kick his head hard enough to knock the noble unconscious, however.

 

“We should move.” Interjected Kincaid, “They’ll regroup soon, and if we don’t get out of here before they’ve had the opportunity to catch our scent we won’t be able to escape on foot. For now they’ll likely assume we died in the blast, that should give us enough of a window to reach a town with vehicles.”

 

“Agreed.” I replied, following him easterly into the Russian wilderness and walking away from the still blazing chaos I’d brought down upon Archangel.


	17. Chapter 17

For lack of a better plan, we headed east in the vague direction of Koschei’s path. The mad scion hadn’t left as much of a trail as I might have hoped, once he’d no longer had a reason to swing that blade at someone’s head he seemed to have stopped using it. We’d initially been able to follow the dead tree limbs and petrified animals touched by mordite, but after a certain point he seemed to have either sheathed his weapon or tossed it back into the pocket of the Nevernever from whence it had come.

 

We didn’t dare stop moving though, not with the screaming howls of the vampires echoing across the tree-line. If we were lucky the burning scent of petrol from the APC would mingle with the general carnage of the Russian bombs and drown out the evidence of where we’d gone.

 

If we weren’t, we’d soon find an entire raiding party of vampires led by one of the Lords of Outer night nipping at our heels. Day turned to night before the Colonel and his men demanded that we stop and break camp in a reasonably concealed ravine.

 

“We cannot keep going like this.” He insisted firmly. “We require food and sleep. If my men do not rest they will be worthless to you.”

 

“Leave them.” Kincaid snorted dismissively, looking at me. “We don’t need them.”

 

“No,” I agreed, “But they’re not the only ones who need rest.”

 

Enlil and Muminah both looked dead on their feet. Enlil had spent god knows how long being tortured by the Russians before our ordeal, and even with the healing power of his symbiote, he was just barely managing to put one foot in front of the other. It was a testament to the man’s sheer stubbornness that he was even standing. There were dark circles under his eyes so prominent that I might have mistaken it for makeup under different circumstances. The immaculate garments he was so proud of looked disheveled, ripped and torn from walking through the underbrush. There was probably a small fortune in extraterrestrial pearls ripped from the fringes of his clothing, spread across the Russian wilderness to baffle some future archeologist.

 

Muminah was operating on fumes at this point, and she was woefully inadequately dressed for the climate. Her feet were swollen and cut from walking barefoot across the rough terrain of the Russian wilderness, and her skin was chaffed where her piercings had rubbed against her as she’d walked. She hadn’t complained though. She would allow me to march her to death by exhaustion before she complained.

 

Thomas wasn’t looking tired, but there was a silver glimmer in his eyes that I didn’t like. He was getting capital “H” hungry – he was at the level where it was still manageable, I’d seen him like this before, but we were fast approaching the point where women on the street would find themselves compelled to throw themselves at him in blind lust. Ammit was already giving him smoldering looks that couldn’t help but seem unsettling given her own proclivities and the sheer mechanics of that situation.

 

Kincaid followed my gaze around our compatriots and curled his lip in frustration. He wasn’t an idiot, there was no way for our group to advance tonight – not without abandoning at least some of our compatriots. And while he might have been willing to abandon Muminah to die in the woods, I wasn’t. He exhaled in frustration, “Fine – we stop for three hours. That’s it. More than that, and we leave behind the ones who can’t follow. We need to talk with Killer Croc about how to follow Koschei anyway.”

 

Ammit growled from where she was kneeling over Muminah. The Goddess had taken advantage of our momentary lull in travel to heal the priestess’ cut and swollen feet, kneeling down to hold the glowing healing device to her wounds. She flinched at the scion’s name, deliberately focusing on the priestess’ physical discomfort over her own visible discomfort at the conversation to come.

 

I’d never actually seen Ammit rattled before. I’d seen her angry, I’d seen her worried, and I’d even seen her scared on a couple of occasions, but this was a degree of unease that I’d never seen out of her before. It was reminiscent of Murphy in some of her darker times after the Nightmare Kravos had attacked her.

 

“Give her a moment.” I insisted as Kincaid moved towards her, placing my hand gently on his shoulder. “I don’t want to rush her into talking about this.”

 

Kincaid’s eyes hollowed with momentary rage at having been prevented from progressing towards freeing the Archive but he softened after a moment at the calm, insistent pressure of my hand upon his shoulder. He brushed it aside after a moment, grunting his assent and walking over to the Russians to confer with the Colonel.

 

One of the Russian soldiers approached me tentatively, as one might approach a large dog that you’re reasonably but not entirely sure won’t bite you. He was perhaps in his late twenties, though one might have mistaken him for his early thirties with the thick stubble across his chin. I arched my brow in curiosity rubbing the recently healed patch of cheek where the Lord of Outer night had previously chewed a hole through my face. “Yes?”

 

“You are a Goa’uld Lord.” The man stated nervously. “The King of an entire Empire.”

 

“So they tell me.” I replied in Russian, leaning against me staff.

 

“What is it like in your Kingdom?” The man inquired, a tone of longing and wanderlust in his voice. “What are other planets really like?”

 

“You’ve been offworld haven’t you?” I was reasonably certain that this man had been one of my kidnappers, but it might just have been the Beret that seemed familiar.

 

“Uh – once.” The man replied uncomfortably, clearly aware of the awkwardness inherent to carrying on polite conversation with a man you’d only recently arranged to put on death row. “But I only saw rocks and moss. I have never seen a world full of life any people.”

 

I took pity on him. I mean really, how regularly does one get the chance to ask an “alien” questions about his home world? I would have been rapid-firing questions at myself in a heartbeat, up to an including “do you know Luke Skywalker” before my brain managed to catch up with my mouth. “Nekheb is an arid world. There are forests and farms to the extreme sides of the planet, near the poles where water collects, but most of the planet is desert and mountains.”

 

Before I’d even realized I was doing it I reflexively held up my hand and breathed out onto it, a smoky, coalescing cascade of starlight flowing out of my lips and onto my palm before expanding into a swirling galaxy on my fingertips. Spurred on by the sense of nostalgia and longing I had for Nekheb, the mantle molded my words into images. The spinning mess of black starlight zoomed down, focusing ever inward till it showed me the surface of my Throne World.

 

The Russian’s eyes bulged in wonder as I continued to speak, the globe spinning round and zooming in on individual elements of the world of Nekheb. I showed him the endless dunes glowing with irradiated light, the mountains of pure bleached bone left by fairy warriors, the sprawling chaos that was the city of Nekheb, glimmering with the eternal daylight of the force field that protected it from the irradiated beauty of the lands beyond. I showed him the palace of Nekheb, a massive Egyptian superstructure built in the city’s center out of marble, diorite, and gold. It was not till I showed him the throne room that I realized that this was no mere illusion, I was showing him an image of the throne room in real-time. The constantly vigilant presence of Traitor’s Bane pulsed at my fingertips, connected to the mantle of the Lord Warden with an intimacy and immediacy I found troubling.

 

Bob was sitting in my throne room, behind the shield as my First Prime briefed him on the particulars of warfare in my campaign. Traitor’s bane wasn’t interested in what they were saying, conversations were a particularly mortal concern and not immediately relevant to the defense of Nekheb or the surrounding worlds in the primary system. It did, however, pick up on four individuals approaching the throne room. It had identified them as potential threats, and was intensely interested in them as they entered.

 

I hissed as I realized who they were. I closed my fist around the swirling mass of stars, absorbing it into the porcelain white surface of my clasped fingers. Starlight shimmered out and around my fingers as I crushed the illusionary universe, shimmering and sparking as I did so.

 

I’d done it quickly but apparently not quick enough to avoid showing them to the Russian soldier. He looked at me in curiosity. “Was that SG-1?”

 

“You’re remarkably well informed.” I replied calmly, even as I tried to connect the dots on what might have brought Colonel O’Neill and his cadre to my doorstep. I couldn’t imagine what might have gotten the Colonel to willingly come to my Throne World, let alone what series of events would get him there unarmed.

 

“Informed enough.” Interjected the Colonel as he walked up to his subordinate. “Vallarin, go – get some rations and some sleep.”

 

The Colonel waited for the solider to get out of earshot before he addressed me. “Do not speak to my men. You speak to me, and I speak to my men.”

 

“Are you afraid I’ll corrupt them?” I replied, a metallic rumble of amusement in my voice. “Turn them to the dark side?”

 

“I’m afraid of nothing – especially not you.” The Colonel snorted derisively. “But you are not Russian, and I do not trust you.”

 

“What a coincidence.” Kincaid interjected, walking back to us holding a tin of rations he’d taken from the soldiers. He was eating a red paste that looked something like catfood and smelled overpoweringly of pork, “Because you are Russian and I’m sure he doesn’t trust you.”

 

I snorted, turning my head to catch Ammit’s glance as she stood up from Muminah and walked the priestess into a deeper part of the woods. The goddess nodded once and mouthed “now” in Goa’uld. It would seem that Ammit was ready for what came next.

 

“If you will excuse me – I have a private matter to address.” I looked to the Mercenary. “Kincaid, if you would come with me?”

 

“Are you completely out of your mind?” Kincaid replied icily. “You want me to walk out into the woods with you so that you can insert a brain parasite into me? No – we’re doing this in the open where I’ve got men with guns in case you get squirrely.”

 

“Kincaid – I give you my word that you’ll be safe.” I replied calmly. “I’ll swear it on my power. I will not allow you to come to harm for the duration of the coming conversation.”

 

“And if that’s not enough?” Kincaid replied.

 

I shrugged. “Then I’ll have the conversation with her anyway and you won’t know how to get to Buyan.”

 

Kincaid’s eye twitched. I was pretty sure he wanted to shoot me, but he acquiesced. “Fine.”

 

The Colonel looked like he might have liked to follow us, but he apparently wasn’t willing to leave his men with either Thomas or Enlil. Not when two of them were dozing peacefully. He sent me a murderous look as I walked after Ammit, following her into the woods. She hadn’t gone far, maybe five minutes in a straight line till she reached a babbling brook and sat down on a petrified stump next to a fallen tree. The crocodilian woman was staring out and into the water, clutching her legs to her chest as she rested her chin on her knees. Muminah sat next to her on a bed of moss, cross legged and attentive to the goddess’ silence.

 

Apparently, the female ability to communicate vast multitudes without actually saying anything was a cross-species skill. I got the distinct sense that the two of them were engaged in an entire conversation that I was not party to based off the significant looks they gave each other. Muminah places her tiny hand on Ammit’s arm, closing her eyes and chanting a prayer of comfort and strength. Ammit looked at her and chuckled, “Are you praying for the Warden to offer me strength little one?”

 

“No lady Ammit, I am praying that you will share a measure of your strength so that I might one day share in your fortitude.” Muminah replied, bowing her head in deference.

 

Ammit rubbed beneath her eye, wiping away what I might otherwise have mistaken for a tear, before placing a hand on the priestess’ head and ruffling her hair fondly. She stood up from the stump, turning to me and saying. “Warden. Let’s get this over with. Does the Scion speak Goa’uld?”

 

“No. But I can translate.” Muminah replied, interlocuting in English on Kincaid’s behalf. The mercenary grunted some half-hearted thanks, as though not entirely sure if he could trust my translation.

 

“Good. Because I’m not repeating this twice.” Ammit replied, kneeling down to pick up a rock. She rolled it around in her palm, checking its shape and size before flinging it across the stream. It made two bounces, not quite managing to make it to the other bank. She tutted irritatedly and kneeled down to find another stone. “I haven’t talked about it before and I very much hope to never talk about it again.”

“Do you know where Buyan is?” Kincaid asked in English.

 

Muminah was starting to translate into English when Ammit interrupted her. “I need you to translate my words. I understand his just fine. I can’t speak the languages of the Tau’ri with the ease you do, but there are only so many questions to ask when someone loses a loved one to that monster. No, nobody knows where Buyan actually is. Koschei takes after his mother, he lives in a house that wanders and hides at will. But there are paths than one might take to find it, if you’re actually dumb enough to try.”

 

“Such as?” I inquired, Muminah doing her best to translate the gist of Ammit’s pontification into English as the goddess pondered my question.

 

“Before I get into that, you need to understand why I know what I know Warden.” Ammit tossed her stone into the air, juggling it between her hands with dexterity belied by her enormity. “You know that I was one of the last Goa’uld to fight the courts when we were expelled from the First Word after the Terms were met. But I wonder warden, do you know what happened after that great battle? Do you know why it is that I am welcome in any Goa’uld kingdom in the galaxy?”

 

“No.” I replied honestly. “I’d rather assumed that nobody was stupid enough to try barring your path. It seems like a remarkably poor life choice.”

 

Ammit laughed out loud. “Yes, that it is Warden. Blood of Apep but you are young, aren’t you? Powerful? Yes, you have great power but you’re not even old enough to know to lie to your elders.”

 

“Nobody has ever attribute me with having an overabundance of sense.” I replied, shrugging.

 

“Indeed. Very well then, upstart, I am free to come and go as I please without any territory to my name or land to my name because I was not the last through the Chappa’ai – I was driven from it when all else was lost. I spent six thousand years fighting to the last man to allow Ra’s Empire to escape then I survived living alone on this world for over eight thousand years before Sokar Rescued me.” She shivered, balling her fist around the stone as she looked around the woods as though expecting something to leap out at her at any moment. “I’ve been on this world longer than the Tau’ri have had a civilization. I’ve fought almost everything that walks, climbs, crawls, or bites on this world, so I want you to understand the magnitude of what I say when I tell you that there is nothing on this world as dangerous as Koschei.”

 

She paused for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose as she tried to steel herself for her next sentence. Dust fell from her fist where she’d clenched it hard enough to pulverize the stone in her hand. “They all fell, one after the other, either to infighting or the races of the First World, and I tried, I really tried, to help them from falling into disorder, but they inevitably gave up on holding this world and fighting the evils that live on it. They forgot our duty to purge the evils of this world. Well… most did. For all his faults, the Jade Emperor has never forgotten his duty. Yu had enough power to keep order in his dominion even as the rest of the world dissolved into Chaos after the Goa’uld Empires surrendered their colonial holdings on the First World. So, I made one final attempt to help restore order, nearly a millennium after the loss of the Chappa’ai.”

 

“He found me. I don’t know how, but he found me.” Her fist was clasped so tight that glowing green blood was now seeping down from where her talons had cut into her flesh. She was outright quivering as she spoker her words. “Koschei captured me at the edge of Lord Yu’s territory. I went into a bag, just like the Archive did, and he took me back to Buyan. He took me there to break me.”

 

“Ammit… I’m so….” I started to apologize before the Goddess got in my face, her snarling maw clenched in a grimace as her eyes bulged.

 

“No Warden. Don’t you dare presume to pity me. I am the Eater of Sin, not some quivering whelp to be pitied. I am a devourer of the unclean not some mewling quim to be sheltered and babied.” She grasped me by my armor, lifting me off the ground with shaking hands. “Listen and understand but do not pity me. I will not be pitied.”

 

“Ammit.” I replied in a voice of deadly calm. “I understand and respect your feelings, but if you do not put me down I will be forced to make you put me down.”

 

She blinked, realizing what she was doing in an instant before placing me back on the ground and grunting out what might have been an apology as tears welled in her eyes. Green-black fluid dripped down from her yellow eyes, leaving glowing runnels along the side of her face. “He doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t need to touch you. He has forever, you understand. It doesn’t seem like it, but that man is patient beyond what you could possibly imagine. He has eternity to wait.”

 

She looked at me, wiping the glowing tears from her face with the back of her palm. “I woke up from that bag in a room. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t hear anything, and I didn’t need anything. There was no hunger and no thirst, just time – endless inevitable time. I thought that he was going to torture me or demand something from me, but he didn’t.”

 

Her voice cracked. “Have you ever been alone warden? I mean really truly alone? Without anyone in the world to even begin to understand how lonely you were?”

 

“Yes.” I replied, thinking back to when I lost Susan.

 

“I want you to remember that feeling when I tell you that even if you were to have felt that absence of hope it would not begin to match what Koschei waits for you to feel before he visits you. He waits for you to be near insane from desperation, then he will visit for only a moment – just long enough to remind you that other people exist – before he disappears back into the void.” She shivered, rubbing her left arm with her bleeding palm – spreading glowing blood as she grinned wolfishly. “But I found a way to stay sane, something the arrogant bastard didn’t think to stop. I started talking to my host.”

 

“I’ve never found the Unas to be particular conversationalists.” I jibed.

 

“Warden,” Ammit chided me. “I haven’t always had an Unas host. Like most of the Goa’uld, I took a Hok’tar when I came to this world.”

 

I blinked in surprise. “Aren’t you the one who always insists that the Tau’ri are weak, frail and prone to failure.”

 

“She was.” Ammit choked up. “Failure, and laughter and sadness and joy – the Tau’ri feel in ways that the Unas do not. They break in ways that the Unas do not.”

 

That was… ominous. “Ammit… what happened to your host?”

 

“She broke.” Ammit replied harshly. “I did not. Koschei realized that I was drawing strength from her and ripped me from my host. He implanted me in an animal capable of seeing her broken form. Without me to make her sane I watched her break to his will, beg him to love her, and die to his blade as soon as the words left her lips. I sat in a cage for the next thousand years staring at her perfectly preserved body and cursing her weakness…and my own.”

 

The Goddess closed her eyes as the tears ran down her face. “I will never be weak again Warden – not ever.”

 

“But you did escape.” I interjected in the hope of saying something positive without shoving my foot into my mouth. “Eventually you escaped.”

 

Ammit nodded once. “The Archive came and stole my cage. I don’t know if she knew what I was or if she just picked something that Koschei cared enough about to draw him into her trap, but when she was done she opened my cage and released me into the skies.”

 

“She did – well, somewhat.” Kincaid grunted. “Talked about it once. She thought you were a transfigured girl, he was fond of doing that, she only figured out after the fact what you were from the notes she stole escaping Buyan. It was a hell of a surprise apparently.”

 

“I can’t express the freedom that I felt when she let me go.” She spread her arms wide, tilting her chin up in memory of having taken flight before snapping her arms to her sides and letting her eyes glow furiously. “I owe her. I will save her.”

 

“Ok sister, I believe that you want to help the Archive.” Kincaid interjected calmly, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. “But you haven’t answered my question – how do we find the bastard?”

 

“There are two paths that we might take.” Ammit replied, chewing her lip. “The first is that we can petition his Mother to allow us passage to Buyan.”

 

“I’m… disinclined to draw the attention of Mother Winter.” Exiled son or not, Koschei was still Mother Winter’s kid. I really didn’t want to gamble on what exactly constituted familial loyalty for Mother Winter and I didn’t want to image what the price of transporting me across time and space to murder her son might be. There was also the added complication of Mother Summer – she might murder me on principle just for having offended her daughter.

 

“Heh – You might think twice about that when you find out the other option.” Ammit replied.

 

“I’m really not going to like this, am I?” Kincaid replied when Muminah translated for him.

 

“Not if you’re sane.” Ammit agreed. “There are chariots hidden across the First World capable of conveying a Hok’tar to Buyan, but they have been lost to time. I do not know where the archive took the one she used to save me, but there are creatures who lurk at the edges of Sun and Snow who might.”

 

“Crap.” I groaned. “You’re not talking about Fairies, are you?”

 

“The Furlings are only one creature out of many who dwell beyond the veil. There are other things with power and knowledge that will trade it, for a price.” Ammit replied calmly. “I would not dare to deal with them myself, but I have not undergone the ritual of Necromantic Ascension.”

 

“Oh hell.” I meant it literally too. Demons, she was talking about summoning a demon. Generally speaking beings of spirit aren’t overly interested in mortal concerns. Even the Fairy realms are really only interested in the affairs of mortals in context with either their own capricious whims or the power struggles between Summer and Winter. As long as you stay out of the way of the Summer and Winter fairies and don’t accidentally catch some Sidhe Lord’s sense of whimsy, you can pretty much avoid the notice of the Sidhe. Demons are a different story entirely.

 

Demons care, demons watch, and demons wait. Generally, out of hunger or some abstract need to just generally be terrifying or monstrous, demons collect as much knowledge and power as they are capable of gaining in order to tempt and corrupt mortals so that they can gain greater knowledge and power so that they can generally be even hungrier, terrifying and monstrous bastards.

 

That shiver that runs up your spine when you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doing and get the vague sense that someone noticed? Chances are that’s a demon taking notes. And while demons are consummate tattle-tales, they’re generally as dangerous to the person summoning them as they are to the person they’re tattling about.

 

“Hell indeed.” Ammit nodded. “But I see no other course if we are not going to parley with Mother Winter.”

 

I inhaled deeply before letting out a long stream of air through my nostrils, pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried to think of a better idea. Coming up empty after my seventh deep breath I replied calmly to the goddess. “I know a guy.”

 

Hopefully Chauncey was feeling chatty today.


	18. Chapter 18

We didn’t talk much on the walk back to the Russians, which suited me just fine. Ammit was leading the group, her posture uncharacteristically deflated of it’s routine swagger. I was somewhat worried about how close Muminah was getting to the goddess at first, but Ammit seemed to welcome the smaller woman’s presence – going so far as to allow the priestess to put her hand within the goddess’ meaty talons and walk hand in hand with the goddess.

 

“That’s just… unsettling.” Kincaid murmured under his breath.

 

I glared at him but didn’t bother to chastise the mercenary. Getting in a fight with him over it would just draw attention to the fact that I’d noticed Ammit being comforted. But I added it to the list of reasons I wanted to punch him in the face between “tried to kill me” and “probably slept with Murphy.” Honestly, if we didn’t have Ivy in common I’d already have cleaned the guy’s clock just on principle.

 

It was for the best anyway. I had to focus on the task before me.

 

Demon summoning isn’t particularly difficult. Unlike most forms of ritual magic where one requires a whole bunch of magical elements and training to make it work, if you have a demon’s proper name and even a vague scrap of talent you can summon any demon you could ever want to make manifest.

 

Demons actively want mortals to find them and summon them, the want to be brought up to the mortal realm. It’s surviving the thing that you’ve brought up from the other side that is the tricky part.

 

There are rules of protocol to demons, logic that they are forced to follow in the same way that any fairy is compelled to follow their nature. Demons are destructive forces, corruptors and betrayers. They are obligated to attempt to murder anyone who has brought them into reality, meaning that many a would-be warlock met a grisly end after having improperly prepared their summoning ritual.

 

I’d learned a number of true names in my time as a wizard, true names of great and terrible things. The green notebook sitting in my basement back in Chicago was effectively a compiled yellow pages for the most malevolent beasts I’d ever been forced to banish back to the depths of Hell. They all had slightly different agendas. Some were creatures that focused on the destructive forces of the universe, one would bargain with them to earn their services as monstrous mercenaries.

 

Others were sources of personal power, ostensibly one could bargain with the beast in exchange for access to power that the demon wouldn’t be able to exercise in the mortal realm without a conduit to the real world.

 

The most subtle, and in retrospect the most dangerous, demons to entreat with were not those who offered physical might or magical prowess – they were information brokers. In my early career as a Wizard I had been arrogant enough to believe that I could make bargains with the demon Chaunzaggoroth at face value. I’d sold him three of my four true names for what had felt cataclysmically important at the time, but couldn’t help but feel inconsequential under my current circumstances.

 

I’d even been foolish enough to think of him as a reliable, if dangerous, source of information, willing to do reasonable business. But he wasn’t. Not really. He was darkspawn, a creature of pure hatred to be trusted no more than an asp. He was, however, the only demon whose summoning ritual I knew well enough to reproduce at a moment’s notice.

 

My heart thundered in my ears as we walked back to the group, running though all the reasons this was a terrible idea. Chauncey had proved himself to be entirely untrustworthy the last time I’d summoned him. Sure, his information was always good.

 

That was how demons managed to continue to operate, it wasn’t that they were just so darn trustworthy but the second that it became known that a demon would lie to you was the second that someone stopped summoning that demon.

 

In point of fact it was specifically because Chauncey was so well informed that I was worried about summoning him. Thus far the people who’d discovered my actual identity were limited to Bob, Lash, Mab and my Godmother – if Chauncey had even an inkling of who I actually was then this could end disastrously. But I couldn’t see a viable alternative other than drawing the attention of the Mothers.

 

There was no way in hell I was going to throw myself on that grenade.

 

I sighed in exasperation as the Colonel pointed his gun at us as we entered the clearing, not able to find fault in the logic of being prepared for anything but still overwhelmed with the sheer exasperation of having yet another weapon pointed at me today. I ignored him even as he lowered his weapon, seemingly accepting the fact that we weren’t planning an ambush, and picked up a stick from the ground.

 

The wet earth was hearty, more clay than dirt. I blasted away a section of the grass to expose the ground beneath, drawing arcane symbols in the muck. They were cruder than I would have preferred to work with, under ideal circumstances one did not summon a demon without a more stable circle to work with. Channeling energy into an improvised summoning circle required a much greater investment of personal power to properly bind a summoned creature. I would have easily been able to manage it even before my ascension, but I could do it in my sleep now that I was hopped up on a double sized dose of belief.

 

Muminah watched in utter amazement as I focused on the circle, holding out my ruby foci and thinking rather than verbalizing the demon’s true name. It would have been an extravagant waste of power for a Wizard, but I wasn’t exactly worried about that sort of thing any more. There was a flash of orange light and sulfurous smoke as the demon trapped within the circle screamed, slamming its crab-like pincers against the unseen barrier, hurling its chitinous shoulders from side to side in an effort to escape the confinement. I hardly even noticed the effort of will required to keep the demon from bursting free.

 

“Are you finished?” I queried, dull boredom seeping from my every pore as the hideous creature straightened its form, pulling a set of wire-framed spectacles and perching them atop it’s beak.

Muminah gasped at the creature, falling to her knees and chanting prayers of protection immediately. It eyed her contemptuously before turning to me. “The formalities are a necessary element of this process, Lord Warden.” The demon replied cautiously, his Oxford accented English more worried than I ever recalled hearing before. “… You… have questions, I presume?”

 

I arched my brow at the demon, Chaunzaggoroth had displayed various emptions to me before. Generally, he’d elected for a dispassionate and businesslike manner, so as best to lull me into comfort and pry my true names from me. In a moment of passion, he’d displayed rage and spite. But he’d never shown me fear before. “Are you afraid of me demon?”

 

“I’m sane, yes.” The demon replied, backing away from me reflexively. “I would prefer to decline this transaction, Lord Warden, before my proximity to you is noticed by those who would wish me harm for the association.”

 

“Excuse me?” I blinked in confusion. I’d never actually heard of a demon refusing to even try to strike a bargain. “To whom are you referring?”

 

“Don’t play coy with me puppet of the Silver City.” Chauncey hissed like a boiling kettle. “She’s looking for you. She hates you. If I help you there isn’t anywhere I can hide from her.”

 

“Lasciel.” I groaned, realizing the only “her” that made sense in context. Lash had been redeemed, by virtue of my influence on her. It stood to reason that the actual fallen Angel likely wasn’t too thrilled about me having redeemed her shadow – especially given that the Fallen might not even know how I’d gotten infected by her influence in the first place.

 

“You stole part of her discarded grace.” The demon shuddered in horror. “Even as the forces of heaven obscure your interactions from view, you stole heaven’s fire. She will never forgive you for that, Warden - none of them will.”

 

Hidden? That was interesting, but not altogether surprising considering the degree of interest that big papa G’s front man seemed to have invested in redeeming Lasciel. Letting the Fallen see exactly who was responsible for redeeming Lasciel’s shadow would have been a one-way trip to thirty coins worth of paradox-laden-whoopass heading for Chicago for one extremely outclassed wizard. But if I really did have a guardian Angel running interference on the infernal periscope that hellish nasties used to spy on the living, then it gave me even more leverage than I could have hoped to have.

 

Because right now, the only thing saving Chauncey from a Fallen Angel making him into an object lesson on not playing nice with the other team was my sense of fair play. And I’ve never been too proud to cheat.

 

“I will have my bargain demon.” I replied to the creature, a wonderfully horrible idea forming in my mind as I disregarded the creature and started drawing another circle in the sand next to him. “And you will provide me with the information I request.”

 

“What are you doing?” The demon’s eyes bulged behind his spectacles. “What… no, you cant!”

 

“Demon, do you think that you are the only name I hold on my lips?” I grinned wickedly. “Perhaps I should call Azorthragal or someone else willing to make a deal.”

 

“But… you cant!” The demon begged me. “I’m still here, they’d see me!”

 

“Yes,” I sighed sadly. “But if you’re not going to deal with me, perhaps they will. Or perhaps not – who knows, they might even manage to keep their lips shut. I’m certain that demons are great at keeping secrets worth a great deal of power to the right ear.”

 

“Stop!” Chauncey held up his pincer in defeat. “Just… stop. What do you want to know Warden?”

 

“I thought that you didn’t want to bargain?” I replied, enjoying the power I had over the demon more than was probably appropriate. Hey, I’d had nightmares about the last time I summoned this thing, ok? I was overdue for some payback.

 

“I might have been overly hasty in speaking before.” The creature’s beady black eyes narrowed in irritation as it hissed and clicked its razor-sharp beak. “I am inclined to bargain.”

 

“I need to know the location of a the nearest Chariot capable of reaching Buyan.” I interjected.

 

“And what do I get?” Chauncey replied spitefully.

 

“Other than the ability to pretend that you haven’t helped me?” I replied icily. “What could I offer a fine upstanding hellspawn like yourself that you don’t already have?”

 

“There are formalities to this Warden. Precepts that must be followed to ensure balance.” The demon bristled in irritation, the long hair hanging from its carapace standing on end. “If something of equal value is not offered the damage done to me by Lasciel will be nothing by comparison to the horror brought upon me by one infinitely more malevolent than she.”

 

Well that was freaking ominous. But at least Chauncey was willing to deal. “What do you want?”

 

“I want to know how you broke the Terms.” Chauncey asked greedily. “How did you get past them?”

 

I grinned maliciously. “Done.”

 

Chauncey blinked his beady eyes, somewhat baffled by the speed at which I’d agreed to his terms. Clearly he’d been planning to negotiate me down from his initial asking price and didn’t quite know what to do now that I’d actually said yes. “What?”

 

“I said done.” I replied, shrugging. “I’ll tell you how I managed to avoid the Terms in exchange for the location of a Chariot capable of reaching Buyan.”

 

Chauncey didn’t do human emotions particularly well, but if I had to describe his expression I would have used the word “baffled” or perhaps “bewildered.” Still, the pact had been made and he would have to meet his end. His feathers ruffled slightly as the bone ridge above his head twitched, his fear mingling with his obvious excitement at the prospect of being able to sell godhood to the greediest and most foolish among the Goa’uld. He crooned in agonized excitement before speaking softly, almost reverently. “The Keeper wanders Verkhoyansk.”

 

“бatь-корать. пошёл на хуй. это пиздец” The Colonel swore furiously, his anger making slurring his speech almost beyond recognition. “He said closest! There is no part of Verkhoyansk that has ever been described as “closest” or “most practical” in the history of the planet Earth.”

 

I practically jumped out of my skin at his outburst. I’d been so focused on Chauncey that I’d all but forgotten my companions. I turned around to see my companions all fixated upon the summoned creature and realized that under the auspices of what the mantle felt was the best course of action I’d basically forgotten to even consider the possibility that my companions might do anything but back my play. Given that I was literally summoning a minion from hell, this specific aspect of impulsivity within my mantle was something I was going to have to consciously keep in check before it got someone killed.

 

My brother was scrupulously convivial about the entire affair, wearing the same affable smile on his face that I remembered from when I’d first met him. He was frightened of me, frightened of what I could do, and was reverting into the fake personality he used to divert attention from himself being a potential threat. I felt a stab of betrayal at the very implication that he would even consider being hurt by his own flesh and blood… before I remembered the very real fact that he didn’t even know that I was his flesh and blood.

 

It was Enlil of all people who seemed entirely comfortable with me summoning the demon, his attention was focused instead upon the Russian solider’s outburst. He wasn’t able to speak Russian, of course, but the man seemed to have an almost preternatural ability to detect human distress. He was laser focused on the Colonel, waiting to see where the man’s frustrations went.

 

“Should I know what Verkhoyansk is, Colonel?” I inquired.

 

“No – no living being has ever had a reason to know the remotest detail of Verkhoyansk. Even the Mongols didn’t bother to invade that frozen scrap of nothing. It is a place for exiles to die in quite desperation.” The man replied in utter contempt. “I don’t even know if there are roads in that frozen hellhole.”

 

“It’s June.” I rejoined. “It can’t be that bad.”

 

“Yes, I think it hit a high of six degrees Celsius this month. A heat wave.” The Colonel rolled his eyes. “You want us to go to Verkhoyansk on the advise of a magical crab to find some ‘Keeper,’ who might or might not exist?”

 

“He exists.” Chauncey pushed his glasses up his beak with one pincer, displeasure coloring his every syllable. “And I do not appreciate aspersions being cast into my trustworthiness.”

 

“You’re a freaking demon.” I burst out laughing. “I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you. And you haven’t given me enough to find the Keeper. So pay up or shut up.”

 

“The Keeper will find you Warden. That much you need not worry about if you enter its domain.” Chauncey chuckled malevolently. “I’m sure it will be happy to make itself known to you.”

 

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. Either the Keeper was hostile, or Chauncey wanted me to interact with the keeper under the premise that the Keeper was hostile to make sure that the Keeper would actually be hostile. “Fine.”

 

“And now for your part, Warden.” Chauncey’s beak clicked excitedly. “How did you escape the terms?”

 

“I didn’t.” I replied confidently. “I was never under them.”

 

Chauncey lost his mind, slamming his insect like body against the invisible barrier. “You cheat! You lying cheat!”

 

“Do we need this creature any more?” Queried the Colonel.

 

“No, I’ll just – ” I replied, but before I had the chance to utter “send him back” the Colonel had already fired a bullet directly into the creature’s eyes. The metal jacketed round would likely have killed a fairy or mortal, but against a demon? It mostly just tickled. Unfortunately, it also broke the circle, freeing the extremely pissed off demon from the magics I was using to bind it in place.

 

It shot forward towards me, skittering on its oblong insect legs as it advanced towards me with those razor-sharp pincers. But it had been my will to bring this creature to this world, and even free of my circle it was only through my invitation that Chauncey continue to exist within the mortal realm. I raised my hand, pointing the crystal foci at him as I let the crushing force of my will come down upon the demon’s own.

 

Chauncey wasn’t a match for me even six years ago, me plus a couple million attaboys from Nekhebs holiest? Forget about it.

 

The demon dissolved into howling motes of sulfur as he grew smaller and smaller, screaming out curses against my kingdom and divinity. “She is watching you, Warden. She will wait forever if need be.” He screeched. “I will make you pay for this. We will see to your downfall. One day you will go to the pit! Your kind are ours in the end!” He babbled on like that until he shrunk down to a pin-point, and vanished with a little imploding sound. I lowered my hand and turned to the Colonel in disgust.

 

“Colonel, do you have any idea how close you just were to potentially getting everyone in our group killed?” I spoke in a voice that was far calmer than I felt at the moment.

 

“You seemed to have the matter under control.” The Colonel Shrugged. “How was I to know it was so hearty? “

 

“I’m going to say this once, because I don’t want to have more bodies on my conscience than I truly need to have, but you are out of your league. I am doing my best to help you, and to not take it personally how far out of your league you keep trying to punch, but if you ever do something as stupid as that again I will allow the creature you free to do what they will to you.” My eyes flashed.

 

“You do not scare me Goa’uld.” The Colonel snorted. “You are on a deadline, I am the one who can secure you transport to Verkhoyansk,” His lip curled in disgust at the name, “And assist you in recovering my people. But if you prefer to just walk four thousand kilometers, I’m sure you will reach it in a month or so.”

 

I restrained the mantle’s demand to punch the prick’s lights out, deciding to take the diplomatic route instead. “You have a better idea?”

 

“But of course.” The man grinned wolfishly, clicking his radio twice to send a warbling beep through it and grinning when there were two loud clicks in reply. “I always have a contingency in place.”

 

He chewed his lip, looking at the tree line above us, “But we will have to reach a much wider opening to make use if it.”


	19. Chapter 19

It wasn’t till I actually heard the whirling blades of the helicopter that I started to worry.

 

It had been a long time since I’d needed to worry about traveling by mortal means. The subordinate races to the Goa’uld tended use either technology of Goa’uld make or to use more primitive methods of solving their problems that weren’t affected by magic. Sure, in Chicago I’d spent most days walking on eggshells to try and avoid computers and the like. Heck, I’d avoided ambulances like the plague for fear of overloading something important and life-saving.

 

So it wasn’t till the actual Russian Helicopters arrived that I started to worry. I mean, I was causing problems with technology before I’d gotten a godly boost of power. Getting into something that would be hovering thousands of feet above ground felt… ill advised. Hell’s Bells, I can kill a copier at fifty paces - and that has to be less of a machine than a helicopter. “Shit. This… this might not be a good idea.”

 

I must not have been doing a good job of hiding the discomfort on my face as Enlil look one look at me before going into a tirade of Babylonian swear words. Ammit snorted and slapped him on the shoulder bracingly. “It’s not that bad.”

 

“The hell it isn’t.” Enlil tugged at his beard. “We drop from orbit - nothing. We fight an army of vampires - nothing. We start a war with the King of Dragons - nothing. A Lord of Outer Night eats a decent part of him - Nothing. Those things show up,” he pointed to the ugly Russian helicopters as they descended to the ground, “And now he’s suggesting that this might be ill advised? Exactly what are those things Warden?”

 

“Flying machines of mortal make.” I replied unsure if I found it comforting or alarming just how old the machines appeared to be. “They tend to be unreliable in my presence.”

 

The Russian soldiers were already embarking into the flying machines, strapping themselves into the seats lining the walls with seat belts that barely felt sufficient to protect someone getting into a low speed car crash, let alone an aerial drop. The Colonel waved me to the back of the massive helicopter. “Are you coming or do you plan to walk to Verkhoyansk?”

 

“How old is this helicopter?” I asked in Russian, hoping that my childhood memories of Rambo weren’t failing me.

 

“It is perfectly safe, there is no need to doubt Russian Engineering.” The Colonel asserted, almost defensively.

 

“So 80’s?” I looked at Kincaid.

“Try 70’s.” The mercenary replied, his eyes traveling across the rotors. “But it looks relatively well maintained.”

 

“Sure,” My brother snorted. “It looks like the pinnacle of Aviation prowess. Truly something to behold.”

 

“It will suffice.” I nodded, leading my cadre up the ramp and into the belly of the helicopter. The idea of getting into a flying machine of mortal make wasn’t thrilling, but I was more confident about getting into something a bit more seasoned. The more complex a machine became, the more that magic seemed to mess with it. This beast might have been thirty years out of date by modern military standards, but that made it more or less perfect for the Wizard on the go. As long as I made a conscious effort to avoid tossing around power, it would probably be safe to ride without causing a crash.

 

The process of affixing the safety belts was more of an involved process than the Russian soldiers had made it appear to be, and while I was able to arrange my own seatbelt unaided Muminah and Enlil required assistance from the Colonel and Kincaid respectively. It was actually somewhat disturbing the degree of comfort with which Enlil seemed to treat the man who’d been torturing him only hours ago as the Colonel belted him in place. I knew that Enlil wanted the man dead, he’d advocated for the decapitation of mortals guilty of far less deserving offenses.

 

But he just gave the man an idle glare of contempt as he inquired in the Goa’uld tongue, “Are we picking up these strays as well after we leave the First World? I’m having trouble keeping track of which enemies we’ve adopted as allies at the moment and which are more of a long term fixture.”

 

“We need them Enlil.” I replied firmly, switching languages. “I don’t know how to fly this thing.”

 

“The Scribe’s warrior seems a more than capable fellow.” Enlil replied in Goa’uld, smiling brightly at the Colonel as the man glared back, walking over and strapping himself into the row of seats across from the Goa’uld. The Russians had all elected to sit on one side of the helicopter, their weapons ready to fire at a moment’s notice. “Perhaps he could fly it?”

 

I blinked. He was probably right. Hell, if we were so inclined I was pretty sure that we’d be able to take the Russians. I don’t even think it would take too much effort to convince Kincaid that we’d travel faster without the mortals. But I wasn’t ready to start killing people just because it was easier. “That leaves us with a single point of failure. Right now we have several people who can operate this machine. If one of them dies we have replacements. If we limit ourselves to a single option then he becomes important. He can negotiate for better terms. Best not to give him the option.”

 

Enlil grunted - the practicality of it seemingly outweighing his hatred of the Russians.

 

“Oh quit your bitching.” Ammit replied, sitting cross legged on the deck of the helicopter and looping her arm through seat belts on either side of the craft. “At least the chairs fit you.”

 

The rear door to the helicopter actuated with a hiss of hydraulics and a screeching of metal that didn’t sound remotely near to as “well maintained” as Kincaid had implied the craft to be. I shot him an incredulous glare and he shrugged. “It’s about all you can expect from Russian aviation.”

 

Just peachy.

 

I closed my eyes as I felt the craft take off, doing my best to think particularly un-magical thoughts as the thunderously loud machine lifted from the earth. I had not been intending to fall asleep while doing so, but sleep overtook me with alarming speed. The combination of repeated dismemberment with mordite and combat with a vampire demigod and taken more out of me than I’d realized. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d just dozed off without requiring substantial degrees of meditation or inebriation prior to it.

 

It is a remarkably odd sensation to be simultaneously both asleep and entirely aware that you’re asleep. I floated in a cloud of nothing, bright white lights twinkling in the grey mists as I moved through an endless void. I exhaled in relief, black plumes of starlight puffing out my lips as I did so. This was not the first time I’d fallen asleep to wake up in the void but it was the first time I’d not been all but deafened by the voices.

 

I could still hear them, the endless echoes of men and women speaking to me in prayer, but they were distant - no longer painful to listen to. A product of not being on Nekheb perhaps? I could still hear a few of them, Muminah’s most striking among them. There were, however, more voices than I would have expected to hear. The quiet whispers of men and women sending prayers or trying to summon the Egyptian god Heka were to be expected, as was the connection between their rituals and the vestiges of Heka’s mantle that lived within me. If I focused hard I could almost see the various people trying to reach the dead god. They were using the wrong names and spells to reach me but their intent felt like it might be enough for me to reach them were I so inclined.

 

What I had not been expecting were the outright prayers to me as the Lord Warden. Someone was trying to reach me as me with their prayers. I reached out to the strongest voice, stretching out my arm to the distant mote of starlight within the whispering shadows and cradled it in my hands. The inky black heat of my breath wrapped out and around the starlight and my dream suddenly changed - shifting the endless void of grey shadows into a distinct pattern of shapes and sounds. My dream became someone’s reality.

 

A woman sat cross-legged in front of a household shrine, praying enthusiastically in the Goa’uld tongue. Her house was a collection of some of the most random items I’d ever seen, posters of the West Wing and Star Wars hung with equal reverence next to a wooden carving of Jesus on the Cross and very naked centerfold of Lara Raith doing something that couldn’t exactly be called work friendly. I blinked in confusion as I realized that the woman was - while quite obviously a priestess from Nehkeb - not tattooed with the magical markings used by the priesthood. No, she was instead covered with wards - specifically my wards. It was as though someone had taken my household protective magics, turned them up to 11, and then filled in the gaps with gnostic scripture.

 

And while I had no Earthly idea who this woman was, she clearly knew me judging by the items she’d elected to place at the base of her household shrine. There was a die-cast millennium falcon sitting next to a cigar, a cassette tape of AC/DC, and little paper crown from burger king. I leaned over to pick up the toy millennium falcon and jumped back as the woman crawled back from me on her hands and knees, groveling in shock.

 

“Oh…” I blinked in surprise. “You… uh… you can see me?”

 

“Yes my Lord Warden.” The woman replied nervously, not daring to look up from the ground. “I had hoped to pray for your guidance but I never imagined that you would deign to meet me in person.”

 

“This is real.” I said - more to myself that I was saying it to her as I felt the warmth of the mote still in my fingers. It sounded true to me, though the idea that I would be bilocating felt preposterous. “I am actually appearing in front of you.”

 

“Yes, my Lord Warden.” Replied the woman nervously. “I am ever your servant.”

 

My intended reply to that was cut off as a man walked into the room in the fatigues if a member of the Air Force senior enlisted, “Ma’am, is everything alright in here…” He froze, catching sight of me and pulling out his sidearm. “Get on the ground! Get on the ground right now!”

 

“Siler, no!” Pleaded the woman, holding up her hands protectively. “Don’t!”

 

I turned to the still groveling priestess, “Sorry, I have to leave. We can talk later.”

 

Uneager to discover the effects of bullets upon my projected image I reflexively let go of the mote of light in my hands, allowing the space around me to melt back into shimmering nothing. I was convinced that had been real. I had really just appeared in front of that woman. I picked a distant pocket of stars, shimmering brightly against the void, and picked one at random.

 

The space around me melted again, and I was now elsewhere. This time I actually recognized the scenery around me. I was on Nekheb, in one of the poorer sections of the town. A man was sitting on a bench, looking at a wooden ring and muttering to himself as he did his best to carve a pattern of trees into it. It was more of the dream of trees than the reality of it, Nekheb had few forests from which one might draw inspiration.

 

“What are you doing?” I asked the man, nearly jumping out of his skin.

 

“Lord Warden?” The man clutched the ring to his breast in shock, looking from the locked door and closed shutters and back. “How did you get into my house?”

 

“You asked me to come.” I replied, as though it were obvious.

 

“I - I was just - “ The man sputtered. “I mean I just was hoping…”

 

“I’m going to guess based off that ring that you were hoping that your proposal would go well?” I smiled fondly. “Or that I would make sure that it did?”

 

“I… yes.” The man stammered, clearly unprepared for this chain of events.

 

“Have you been kind to her? Have you treated her well?” I asked.

 

“I think so.” The man replied. “As well as many, better than most.”

 

“Then she might say yes.” I shrugged. “And she might say no. But if she says no, then don’t waste time on anger. You’ll find the right one for you.”

 

“Sure.” The man pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his eyes as though unsure if this was real. “I mean, yes, Lord Warden.”

 

“Cool. Good luck man, I hope she likes you as much as you like her. That’s the best anyone can hope for in life.” I laughed, letting go of the ball of light and returning to the void.

 

Two balls of light touched. Two prayers answered, or at least close to answered. How long, I wondered, did it take? Was I summoned in moments? Hours? Was my physical body summoned along with my mind? Fairies were summoned in flesh and blood, not just spirit. Was I like them?

 

Only one way to find out, I supposed. I reached for the ball that I knew was Muminah and summoned the helicopter into the void. It was surreal to suddenly transplant myself into the room I’d fallen asleep in, especially considering that my body was still in front of me. I reached out to touch my skin, only to realize that my summoned form was a construct made purely from the shadows and starlight that welled in my eyes and mouth. My astral body looked like a living construct of boiling shadow, endless galaxies swirling within me.

 

“What the hell is that?” Enlil groaned, looking from me to - well, me.

 

“It’s still me, Enlil” I replied. “I’m summoning myself to my followers, answering prayers.”

 

“You chose now to do that?” Ammit barked with laughter. “We’re fighting a horror from the ancient war and you’re answering your mail?”

 

“It felt like the thing to do.” I replied, looking at the confused Colonel, pointing to myself, and asking in Russian. “How long have I been asleep?”

 

“About an four hours.” Replied the Colonel in confusion. “We still have a ways to go. For now, we are in the middle of the Siberian Wilderness.”

 

“Damn it.” I groaned. It had only felt like moments. It might have been a side effect of distance or just a product of how long it took to enter the state of REM sleep required to bilocate, I would have to experiment with it more at a later date.

 

I stood up straight, sniffing at the air as a throbbing sensation of power came towards me. I knew that power. It was mine. My power was coming towards me. And there was only one place that made sense for that much of my own power to be coming from. I couldn’t see it through the closed door of the helicopter, but I knew what it meant.

 

The Lord of Outer Night was coming towards us.

 

“I need someone to wake me up.” I snarled.

 

“You’re talking to me right now.” Replied the Colonel.

 

“No, my dream is.” I snarled. “I need my body awake - now.”

 

Kincaid nodded, elbowing me in the gut and rather unceremoniously breaking the summoning. I huffed out a breath of air as my eyes opened and I stood up from my chair, wrenching open the sliding side portal to the helicopter and sticking my head out to look behind us. Day had turned to night, and through the twilight I could see a looming cloud moving against the wind at an unholy speed.

 

“That’s going to catch us.” Kincaid stated.

 

“Before killing and eating us.” Ammit agreed, querying in broken English. “Is this craft armed?”

 

“No,” Replied the Colonel in his own accented English. “Flares, but no weapons. I was not expecting a war.”

 

“Can you get more planes?” Asked Thomas nervously as the sky turned black behind us and filled with the buzzing of millions of ensorceled insects. “Shoot it out of the sky?”

 

“We aren’t near any bases I’d dare contacting. The connections your people had with the previous government leave certain elements of the current structure… dubious.” The Colonel shook his head. “If we believe that this craft will be overtaken, we do have a failsafe onboard.”

 

“Do… do I want to know?” My brother inquired nervously making eye contact with me, the phrase “failsafe” ringing with a uniquely ominous tone in the Russian Colonel’s clipped tones.

 

“We are in the Siberian Wilderness. If I need to activate the failsafe we should be able to eliminate the threat of that creature with minimal fallout to civilians.” The Colonel patted a silver container beneath the row of chairs upon which the soldiers were sitting. “It will require some explaining on the part of our government, but a Chechen group has been chosen to take responsibility for the use of the device.”

 

“Holy fucking shit is that a goddamn nuke!” I screeched, moving away from the box as far as I dared - trying to get as much space between it and me as I could. I didn’t want to know what affects my magic would have on a device that sophisticated. Hell’s Bells - now I had to worry about using even minor defensive magic or I might set that thing off.

 

The Colonel grinned, holding up what I presumed to be the detonator. “I was not going to allow your kind access to my country without an appropriate counter-measure to any potential misdeeds.”

 

“This is not how you make friends Colonel!” I hissed between clenched teeth.

 

“I am a patriot, not a politician.” The man shrugged. “I would rather die for Russia than allow it to fall to monsters like you or that thing.”

 

Kincaid seemed unbothered by the presence of the nuke. “How long of a timer is on that device?”

 

“Irrelevant.” The man scoffed. “We would not escape the blast radius.”

 

“Not on Earth, no.” Replied the mercenary. “I was hoping to be elsewhere when it went off.”

 

I blinked, realizing his meaning. “You want me to take an entire helicopter into the Nevernever?”

 

“Well that depends on if we can activate the bomb or not. That thing could just follow us through it.” Kincaid replied, addressing the Colonel directly. “So, how long is the timer?”

 

“Thirty seconds,” Replied the Colonel. “Long enough to make peace with God.”

 

“Is that enough time?” Asked Thomas.

 

“I really hope so.” I replied, swallowing nervously.

 

I’d taken an entire space ship into the Nevernever when I’d been fleeing Delmak, but that had been powered by the reactor of the aforementioned ship. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to open up a hole big enough for a helicopter in motion but it felt like a better option than either being eaten or dying in a mushroom cloud.

 

“It’s either that or let that cloud get close enough to actually eat us.” Kincaid pointed behind the helicopter at the swarm of bugs that had now gotten close enough for me to actually hear it screaming “Blood! Give me more blood!” as though the skies themselves were starving for my flesh.

 

“Works for me, Ammit, I need that gone.” I pointed to the box.

 

Ammit tore the container from the floor one handed, ripping the bolts out with causal ease and chucking it out the side of the helicopter. The Colonel activated the detonator as I reached out with my hand and did invoked spell to open a way to the Nevernever, forcing open a way with my will. “Aparturum!”

 

The way opened, but not quite as fast as I would have preferred, tearing a hole in reality that was almost large enough for the helicopter to fit through. With a screeching of tearing metal as the gap in reality, the steel roof of the helicopter separated from the whirling blades - the forward momentum of the helicopter propelling it through the opening I’d cut in reality. I slammed the way shut as the wall of bugs got too close to the helicopter’s read for comfort, slicing off the tail and exit ramp as the barrier between the Nevernever and real world smashed closed. The freshly closed way rippled angrily in the open air as wave of radiation impacted with it - presumably the after-effects of a nuclear explosion on the Nevernever.

 

My whooping cry of victory became a scream of fear as physics carried the crippled helicopter across wet earth and over the sheer drop of a cliff - plummeting us towards jagged rocks.


	20. Chapter 20

People seem to be under the impression that magic just lets you solve your problems with a wave of your hand and a couple of words in arcane language, as though the laws of physics just ceased to apply to Wizards. I wish. No, the sad reality is that a magical force of equal or greater is required to alter the state of any given object moving through space. I have the ability to impose my will upon the world around me, but the imposition needs to be commensurate with what I’m trying to do.

 

Using wind to close a door or kick something into my hand? That’s easy. Knocking over some mook between me and what I want to do? That’s harder. Tossing aside some group of supernatural nasties? That’s even harder. Re-directing a crashing helicopter in real time while trying to stop myself from falling out the side of the aforementioned helicopter? That’s damn near impossible.

 

I’d love to tell you that I did something particularly Wizardly or Godly to save us, but the reality is that I fell forward hard enough to break my neck, just barely managing to grab one of the Russians by their combat webbing and stop myself from falling out the open side doors. I resisted the overpowering sense of nausea as my head buffeted about in the wind, twisting in every direction at once.

 

“What in the fuck?” Screeched the terrified Russian – the one who’d been so interested to talk to me about Nekheb. My head got stuck between his combat webbing and the belt, fixing my vision in place over the man’s name tag.

 

“Sergei. Shove my head back in place.” I spoke to the man, my voice muffled against the man’s chest. “I’ll be fine, but I need my head back on straight.”

 

“This is so wrong.” The man griped as he twisted my head back into place. I felt a wave of relief as my head snapped back into alignment against my spine.

 

“Thank you.” I spoke to the young man as I wrapped my staff-arm in the hanging webbing to fix myself in place, summoning my power to blast our craft up and away from the jagged rocks. I fixed my gaze upon them, trying to figure out how much time I had to cast a spell – trying to figure out a safe trajectory away from them.

 

There wasn’t one.

 

Near as I could tell we’d fallen off the edge of the Nevernever and down towards an endless sea of obsidian spikes pulsing with violet light. The best I could hope to do would be to slow our impact enough to cushion our fall, and even that seemed dubiously connected to safety judging by the crimson lightning arcing between the jagged spires. It formed odd pockets of luminosity as the electrical discharge connected with the flowing pockets of gas, rainbows of fire shimmering around the knife-points of stone.

 

A man screamed in pain from my left and I felt my heart stop as I watched my brother’s fall out the side, his seatbelt breaking from the wall. The man had greatly enhanced reflexes and strength, but he needed something solid underneath him for them to do him any good. I just got to watch some supernaturally fast flailing as he plummeted out the side.

 

Fortunately for Thomas, Ammit had a much more solid position. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t inclined to be especially gentle with the vampire. Ammit snagged Thomas as he pitched forward, her long talons digging deep into his side. He screamed in agony, gripping her arm hard enough to break the skin, but neither predator let go of the other in spite of their obvious pain.

 

I could feel the waves of desire Thomas was unconsciously pumping out towards Ammit, and really didn’t like the way she was licking her lips as the yellow glow of her eyes matched the silver glow of his own. There was no way that the orange glow coming from where the blood met between Ammit’s glowing green and Thomas’ sanguine pink wasn’t going to end up biting me in the ass if I allowed that to keep happening.

 

I didn’t want to put too much power into the spell to slow us down or I would risk collapsing the already stressed cockpit and killing the pilots, but I risked killing us all if I didn’t use enough power. I focused on an image in my mind of a cushion of air beneath us, pressing up and gently slowing us. Clasping my staff firmly in my hand, I shouted the words of power I’d spoken a thousand times before. “Ventas Servitas!”

 

And then something odd happened. Just as the power pooled into a massive, visible cloud of wind, things started to slow down around me. The closer we got to that purple light on the ground below us, the less that time seemed to have any connection to the world around me. I looked at Kincaid, trying to figure out what the man was shouting over the howling winds and screaming motor of the aircraft. His mouth was opened in a scream as he pointed up at a wall of flames building up above us. The helicopter’s engine, torn free of its rotor blades appeared to have suffered catastrophic enough damage to set alight. As Kincaid’s finger began to lower, his mouth formed into a ridiculous caricature of a word. Just the one. “Gas!”

 

“Hell’s bells.” I snarled, realizing that some parts of the aircraft’s hull were already glowing red from the combined petrol and electrical malfunctions. “That’s… that’s really bad.”

 

I wasn’t sure what was in the billowing cloud of air I’d summoned to slow our descent, but dollars to doughnuts it would ignite upon contact. I could try to disperse the wind, but that would just throw us back into the same situation we’d started, falling to our deaths.

 

Only one thing for it. “Aparturum!”

 

As the window to the real world opened below us in a shimmering disk through the center of reality, I reached up to the engine and blasted the thing out of the helicopter with a burst of kinetic force. I’d judged, rightly, that my bursts of force were as accelerated as the rest of me – allowing me to remove most of the burning wreckage from our now roofless aircraft.

 

Our helicopter, which really was just a glorified sled at this point, fired back into the real world. The Nevernever, always glad to throw me for a loop, fired us out of the realms of faerie. In the exact opposite direction of the way we’d previously been falling, of course. The flaming wreckage of our helicopter fired up and into the star-strewn skies. My companions, who had not been privy to my own accelerated experiences in the time stream, caught up to me in an instant – reacting to the whiplash between environments with a mix of fear and confusion.

 

No longer fearing the combination of explosive gasses and flames I summoned a mighty gust of wind with another shout of “Ventas Servitas,” to bend the elements to my will. There was a confusing degree of symmetry between the spell and desires of my mantle, the roiling well of prayers at the edge of my thoughts almost humming with the sheer audacity of it. The buffeting winds met us in a roiling mess of wind and sand that our damage craft surfed along till we set down at the foot of the high dunes. Our craft skidded to a gentle stop along the sands, an incongruously soft landing compared to the horrific degree of damage that had been done to our craft.

 

I untangled myself from the craft and rushed over the interlocked predators, feeling the waves of hunger rolling off of Thomas with mounting dread. Ammit wasn’t good at separating out her different types of hunger and I’d been keeping her from sating some of her more primal needs since she’d joined my service. Her eyes were bulging with near apoplexy as her talons dug deeper and deeper into my brother’s vital organs.

 

“Ammit, let him go.” I spoke calmly, approaching her with my palm upturned in what might have appeared non-threateningly for anyone not carrying a Goa’uld foci in their palm.

 

“It’s a vampire, Warden. Even now I can feel it trying to feed off of me, hungering for me.” Ammit snarled ripping her other hand free from the remains of the Helicopter now that we were no longer falling. Her palm was shredded and glowing from where the metal shredded flesh. I could actually see a hint of bone between the preternaturally quickly healing glowing blood filling her wound. “If I let it go, it will try to kill me.”

 

“Ammit, listen to reason…” I tried to reply to her only for the goddess to speak over me.

 

“No, damn it, you listen!” Ammit snarled over me, her voice reverberating with abject vitriol. “I know these things. I know them better than any living creature in the entire Galaxy. So, when I tell you something about a vampire, whelpling god, you do not argue with me. You listen. Period.”

 

“Ammit…” I flinched at her tone.

 

“Don’t you ‘Ammit’ me as though I were one of your stable of doe eyed priestesses.” She tilted her head towards Muminah as the priestess extricated herself from her seatbelt, nervously clutching Kincaid’s arm as gods quarreled. I felt an unaccountable jolt of possessiveness as Kincaid actually let her grasp his arm, though if it were out of some latent attraction to the priestess or my unresolved feelings for Murphy I couldn’t say. She let go of the man’s arm as though she’d been scalded when she realized that I’d seen her, bowing her head in shame and blushing deeply. Ammit snorted in disgust at the display. “I am a Goddess, Warden, not some chattel to be ordered around. Look at it, Warden, and tell me that it’s safe to let this thing free.”

 

As worried as I was for Thomas’ physical safety, Ammit was right. The silver light of Thomas’ hunger had subsumed the man’s entire eyes. His entire body was a rictus of coiled muscles and sinew, throbbing with a desire that had crushed any semblance of logic within him. His psychic wammy was only directed at Ammit at the moment, but I could feel the vague tugs of it at the corners of my mind. It wasn’t the controlled power I’d felt when Lara had used it in the deeps or when Thomas had tired to use it on me the library. This was something instinctual, impulsive.

 

I wasn’t even sure if Thomas was conscious or if this was some sort of comatose takeover by the demon living in his body. “Oh… crap.”

 

“I know that you owe this creature’s mother much, but I cannot conceive of a way for one of us not to walk away from this dead.” Ammit’s mouth frothed with saliva, giving the distinct impression that she’d gone rabid. “Unless we allow it to feed, it will continue to be a danger to us. And I know that you would never consent to allow that. Not for a full feeding. Not for a terminal one.”

 

“I…” Would I? For Thomas? Could I let someone die so that my brother would live? I couldn’t use Kincaid, he played a role later in my life. Muminah was off the table, without question. I couldn’t exactly use the Russians without having them turn against me, and I was still reasonably sure I’d need them to find Buyan. Enlil… perhaps, nobody seemed to be particularly fond of him and I could probably garner favor with the White Court by…. What the hell was I thinking?

 

No. I wouldn’t. Not for him. Not for him, not for anyone. There were some lines that you just didn’t cross. I got as far as saying the “Nuh” of “No” before Ammit realized my hesitation, her predator’s instincts honed to a razor’s edge. An instant of hesitation was an instant too long for her not to catch it. She clutched my brother with a bone crushing squeeze of her fist, ignoring the Vampire’s howl of pain as she turned twin glowing pits of vitriol towards me. “You… You’re actually considering it?”

 

“No… not really.” I replied with insufficient fervor to convince even a toddler of my sincerity.

 

“The fuck warden, why is it ok when he eats people?” Ammit sounded more hurt than angry. “Who was this man’s mother?”

 

“Margaret LeFay.” I replied honestly.

 

“No… no, none of that. No lying with truth. No facts to hide the whole story.” Ammit’s other hand whipped out, quick as a snake, and grabbed my brother’s head between razor sharp talons. “For once in your life you’re going to give me a whole answer. Tell me why I shouldn’t crush this psychophage like the millions of other vampires I’ve slain for being the monsters they are? Tell me why you value this creature’s life above mine!” She calmed, her eye twitching disturbingly as her voice grew deadly quiet. “Tell me or I will assume the creature ensorcelled you while you were imprisoned.”

 

Her eyes glowed again, shimmering green instead of the gold I associated with the Goa’uld. Enlil grabbed my arm firmly, hissing a warning. “Warden, take care with your words – Ammit’s power was not completely taken.”

 

“What?” I blinked in surprise, looking from Ammit to Enlil and back. “I thought you were all stripped of your powers by the Terms.”

 

“Some more than others Warden.” Enlil sighed, tugging at his beard. “If you’d been honest with us about your relative novice status within the pantheon rather than imitating Heka I would have warned you of this long before now. Ammit devoured the souls of the Unworthy. Even now she can use that connection to see sin. If you lie to her, or try to hide things from her, she will know.”

 

That… that was very, very bad. I’d spent the better part of a year prevaricating to a woman who apparently would instantly know if someone was lying to her. But no – that couldn’t be right. I’d never felt the piercing wave of insight she was bringing down upon me now. This wasn’t some magic that could be done surreptitiously or pass without notice. I could feel the goddess’ eyes as though they were pressed against my soul with an immediacy that effectively rendered even a token attempt at psychic defense irrelevant.

 

Judging by the glowing green blood running down her face like glowing tears, tapping into this power was extremely painful for Ammit. I didn’t imagine she’d tolerate that pain for long before losing patience and snapping Thomas’ neck. She snarled. “Why do you care about this… this thing!”

 

She needed honest. Simple. True. And without any attempt to conceal my intentions. Fine, she wanted a truth bomb dropped on her, I’d be glad to supply one. “If you kill him we will all die. Every single one of us.”

 

Ammit froze, her body tensing up from the utter magnitude of my conviction in the truth of those words. “What could one single vampire do to merit that treatment?”

 

“Ammit, when I told the Winter Queen that I knew the future, I wasn’t lying. I know the future. I have seen the chain of events in that man’s future and if you kill him you will inevitably cause a doom upon us beyond even the gods to survive. You will unmake my entire Pantheon, destroying everything I have made and you along with it more than likely. I doubt you will survive.” I replied, holding my staff up and letting the tip of it glow with searing heat. “And even if you do, I will live just long enough to hunt you down and kill you for the millions upon billions of lives you will take by making this short-sighted choice.”

 

“But he’s a vampire?” Ammit replied in befuddlement. “How could he possibly be that important?”

 

“He’s a man. He’s a sum of his choices, good and bad. His good choices will lead him to important things in life.” I smiled, thinking of the calming smile of my friend Michael as he offered sermonic wisdom. “Nobody is beyond saving who is willing to make right choices. Yes, he’s a vampire. Yes, he’s guilty of murder and worse, but he’s trying to be better than the monster inside him. We can’t chose our past, only our future.”

 

Enlil stiffened as though I’d run a lighting rod though him. “Ammit, let the vampire live.”

 

“What?” Ammit blinked in confusion, as surprised as I was by the god’s uncharacteristic decision to intercede on behalf of the Thomas.

 

“The fact that you haven’t ripped the vampire’s head off tells me that the Warden’s babbling puddle of madness was, inexplicably, nothing but truth.” Enlil groaned. “I’m not willing to risk anything he considers to be ‘doom beyond the power of the gods’ given the scale of events the Warden considers to be surmountable problems. We’ve killed plenty of vampires already, let this one go.”

 

“Well… I… shit.” Ammit’s eyes returned to their normal state of luminous gold, turning to the increasingly violent feral incubus. “What am I supposed to do with this thing?”

 

“Do you still have your healing device?” I asked Ammit, pulling the gauntlets from my hands and pulling the helmet from my head.

 

“Yes.” Ammit gritted her fangs as Thomas kicked her ribs hard enough to break one.

 

“Good, you’ll need it.” I turned to Enlil. “I need help with the fasteners.”

 

“Warden, just once, could you please come up with a plan that isn’t completely insane?” Enlil sighed, fiddling with the fastenings on my armor. He spent a good minute failing to accomplish his goal before swearing out a tirade of frustrated Akkadian swear words. He gave up on it, letting go with his jeweled fingers and stewing next to me as he gestured for Muminah. “Woman! Fix this.”

 

I got a distinct kick from how effortlessly my High Priestess managed to execute the task that the god had failed to do, her deft fingers releasing my breast-plate and removing the upper part of my armor in a matter of moments. She bowed deferentially to me and said, “I live to serve your whims, Lord Warden,” in a way that might as well have translated as “fuck off Enlil” based upon her calculated absence of acknowledgement of the Mesopotamian god.

 

No longer hindered by my armor, I approached my brother. Ammit sputtered, “Warden, this is a really – really bad idea!”

 

“I’m not going to let him feed from me.” I brushed off her concerns. “He wouldn’t be able to even if he wanted to.”

 

“I don’t know what she’s saying.” Kincaid interposed over our loud argument in Goa’uld, addressing me in Russian, “But you need to step back from the vampire!”

 

He was holding his gun up. It was not at me but not away from me, if you get my drift. He and the Russians were standing back from us, nervously observing the argument between the alien space gods. We’d not involved them directly, not yet, so none of them seemed to feel obligated to actually do anything. “Walking shirtless towards an incubus” apparently tripped Kincaid’s “say something” option on the “wait and see how this turns out” scale.

 

“I can save him.” I replied calmly. “I know how.”

 

“Everyone who has ever gone near one of those things says that.” Kincaid shook his head. “They’re always wrong.”

 

I snorted with derisive amusement, continuing to walk towards the vampire. It wasn’t exactly as though his bullets could hurt me. Thomas, definitely, but not me. And I didn’t think Kincaid would waste the bullet. “I’m a god, Kincaid. Let me work a miracle here, why don’tcha.”

 

I hugged my brother from behind, holding him in a tight embrace. He howled in agony as skin met skin, his flesh bubbling and boiling where I’d wrapped my arms around him. His hunger was not prepared for the protective geas of love within me, fleeing me it involuntarily let go of Ammit and tried to pry me from him. His fingers blistered and puckered as they tried to wrest me from his body.

 

I didn’t enjoy hurting my brother, but it was the only thing I could think of doing. White Court vampires kryptonite was love. And given that Thomas had gone full on Kneel before Zod in his application of the come hither whammy, green rocks felt like the best solution. As the last of the silver light faded from his eyes he groaned in a whimpering excuse for his normal voice, spitting up pink blood now that his hunger wasn’t forcing him through the pain.

 

“Ammit! The healing device.” I held out my hand for her to toss me the foci, wrapping it over my hand and willing the device to action. I hated the healing devices. They made me feel filthy to even touch them. They were an artefact of necromancy, plain and simple. The person using the device used the devices internal power source, along with some of their own life force, to heal the illness and injuries of their patient. Effectively the caster was killing themselves by inches in order to use it. For an Unas with a healing capacity that bordered on biological immortality or a Goa’uld System Lord who could expect to have a sarcophagus to top off their life span with a virtually unlimited pool of energy, it meant remarkably little. For any Wizard or Practitioner foolish enough to actually use these devices, healing even minor injuries could mean that they were shortening their lifespan by months or years without knowing it.

 

I felt the sickly sweet cold of necromancy as I fed my own life force into my brother, shimmering white light healing his wounds and even knitting together the scars I’d caused with the protection of my love. By the time I was done he was back to that infuriatingly pristine, movie-star turned model look that he seemed to have at all times. I threw the device back to Ammit so that she could heal herself, disgusted at myself for ever having even touched the device as I helped the groggy form of my brother to his feet.

 

“That… really hurt.” Thomas spoke the words as though he were trying to chew through something thick, the device healed the body but left the muscles somewhat tense for a few minutes after it finished working. “I mean… wow. That really hurt.”

 

“Good.” I replied convivially. “You were being a jerk.”

 

“You’re a shitty fairy godmother.” Thomas groaned.

 

“I’m not a fairy or a mother.” I replied. “Just a god. Catching our interest isn’t commonly known for causing joy in the lives of those we’ve met.”

 

“Bright ray of sunshine, you are.” Thomas squinted up, looking at Ammit as she tended to her wounds. His face colored with shame before he spoke in English. “Uh… sorry for… trying to kill you.”

 

Ammit arched a ridged, scaly brow. “What did the vampire say?”

 

“I thought you spoke English?” I blinked in confusion.

 

“I speak it, I just wanted to make sure that that thing was actually dumb enough to think that I’ll just take ‘sorry’ and be done with the matter.” Ammit actually laughed.

 

I paused, unsure what the safe answer was to that.

 

Ammit let loose another loud belly laugh as she looked out at the horizon beyond us. “Warden, I don’t know how you managed it, but you found the only creature with worse survival instincts than your own.”

 

“At least we are back on familiar ground.” Enlil sighed, looking out across the dunes. I could just make out the peaks of a series of artificial mountains in the distance. Giza and a number of other, smaller, pyramids.

 

“How did you get us to Egypt?” The Russian Colonel asked, pulling out a small device from his waist as he asked the question. I presumed that it had at once been one of the GPS devices I kept hearing about, partly out of context and partly because the device had ceased to operate utterly after having been exposed to that much magic. He pulled out three different cellular devices in succession after that, trying each of them only to put them away in disappointment. Electronics and magic just didn’t mix.

 

“Through the Nevernever.” I replied. “I thought that was obvious.”

 

“I understand that much, but what is the Nevernever? Why was it a forest in one place and jagged rocks in the next? Why does it apparently destroy all electronics?” He tapped his watch disappointedly. “I do not regret it saving our lives, but if I am going to have to document this in my post mission report I will need more than ‘we went through a magic portal to Egypt.’ Moscow will not react well to that.”

 

“But they were willing to contract you out to vampire hunters?” I replied, pointing to Kincaid. “With a foreign Merc and a preschooler as your commanding officers?”

 

The man’s expression darkened, his lip twitching as though he wanted to speak but didn’t dare. One of the other Russian Soldiers, a sturdy looking man with an ugly moustache was substantially less guarded in his response. “When the President gives you direct orders, you accept them.”

 

“Marchenko!” The Colonel hissed in irritation. “Stay your tongue.”

 

The mustachioed Russian seemed unphased by this superior officer’s frustrations, confident – or perhaps overconfident – in his situation. “Sir, the mission has gone eight ways to hell. We have clearly been incorrectly briefed to the dangers and individual players in this situation. We actually used a nuclear countermeasure. I think perhaps we’ve hit the point where we need to admit we are over our heads. The only reason we aren’t shadows against a brick wall is that the pale one can rip holes in reality. Let the Americans fight the Goa’uld out of blind obligation, I want to know what the hell is going on! And I cannot cure that ignorance while we are pretending to be in control of this situation.”

 

“You are treading dangerously close to insubordination, Lieutenant.” The Colonel barked in reply. “I gave you an order. Drop it.”

 

“Sir – this is madness.” Marchenko continued, “We have failed our mission. It was scrapped by the kidnapped child. At best we are going to bring something of equal value, and still at the cost of hundreds of Russian lives. We will get our people back, but you are acting irrationally. Either act in accordance with how you ought to or Kirensky and I will support Vallarin’s choice to relieve you of command.”

 

Vallarin, the young man who’d re-attached my head, looked more alarmed by the prospect of undercutting the colonel than he had been as my half-decapitated head flopped round on his lap. He swallowed nervously, “Sir… please see reason.”

 

“You all feel this way?” The Colonel looked like he wanted to shoot them as they nodded. He gritted his teeth, then seemed to deflate. He looked much older, weathered by time and stress. I recognized that look. I’d worn it more times than I cared to admit.

 

That was the face of a beaten man. He’d used everything in his power to force the world to be right, and it still hadn’t been enough. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been selected by the Archive as a pawn in whatever game she was playing with the help of the White Council. The man had received orders, and he’d followed them to the best of his ability. He knew more about the supernatural than most, but he was still just a vanilla mortal.

 

“How did we come to this?” He asked, soft enough that I just barely caught it.

 

He was punching way out of his weight class. Doing a damn good job of it, but he was out of his league and he knew it. I whistled softly, “Remind me never to play poker against that guy.”

 

“I know.” Thomas replied, standing shakily on his own two legs. “I bought the tough guy act as well.”

 

“The pilots are dead, Warden.” Ammit spoke from where she’d pried open the cockpit, her nose crinkling in disgust. “Poison?”

 

“Cyanide.” Kincaid interjected calmly, to the overpowering odor of bitter almonds coming from the crew compartment.

 

“We gave the pills to our people in the event the failsafe were enacted.” Replied the colonel.

 

“Is that actually better than getting nuked?” I inquired, trying to figure out which would be worse.

 

“It is more a matter of resisting the urge to disable the bomb.” The Colonel shrugged, turning to me in mild contrition, watching as Muminah helped me back into my armor. “Warden… I need to know things. My ignorance will get my people killed.”

 

“Ok, Colonel.” I replied in my most Wizardly tone. “What do you want to know?”

 

“Everything.”


	21. Chapter 21

I answered the Russians’ questions as we trekked across the dunes towards Ammit’s proposed solution to our setback in reaching Buyan. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Ammit revealed knowledge of a hidden transport beneath the Egyptian desert. The land had been the dominion of Ra for centuries. It didn’t take much effort to convince the group that heading for her concealed cache beneath the sands was our best course of action.

The Russian Colonel was a remarkably receptive audience, I’ve had to give the “magic 101” conversation before and it’s generally a painful experience even for people who weren’t totally ignorant of the mystical world. I’d been operating under the assumption that the Russian soldiers were substantially more knowledgeable of the world they’d been thrown into. While there certainly were elements that they understood such as the existence of vampires, aliens, and White Council, their knowledge was only marginally more than anyone who’d watched the X-Files. We went through the basics, how to kill vampires, why magic was dangerous, the importance of thresholds, the Nevernever, Faeries and why to avoid them like the plague, and – of course – wizards. Boy did they ever want to know about wizards.

 

Their job in protecting Petrovich’s fortress had been mostly of the “do anything this man tells you to do” variety. They’d been told both that magic was real, and that the people living within the fortress were Russia’s Wizarding allies, but precious little other than that. Even learning that not all Wizards were combat specialists like the Brute Squad had been new knowledge to them. When I told them that there was an utter legal prohibition on using magic to inflict lethal damage on human beings, you would have thought I told them bullets no longer worked on them.

 

Colonel Zukhov seemed to fundamentally struggle with the idea that the purpose of the White Council of Wizards was not, in fact, a method of secretly controlling the governments of the world. That one would have the ability to warp all reality to their will, and would not elect to do so, seemed preposterous to him.

 

“If not to save humanity, then what purpose is there in having laws and structure for Wizards?” Zukhov asked in annoyance, having no re-worded the same question about six different ways.

 

“I’m not the best resource to answer that question Colonel.” I shrugged. “It’s not like they’re consulting me on how to structure a government. I’m more than a little bit surprised that they were as involved with the Russian government as they clearly were in Archangel.”

 

“Stalin’s agreement with the Wizard Pietrovich continued after the collapse of the USSR. After he was kind enough to assist us in removing the choke hold the White Court and their Oligarchs placed upon us the president was predisposed to accommodate protecting him from their potential reprisals.” The Colonel shook his head. “He will not be so agreeable in future without substantial compensation to make it worth the time of the Russian people, I think. Too many lives were wasted.”

 

What little I knew of the Russian President didn’t incline me to believe that he’d be swayed one way or the other by the loss of life, but it seemed imprudent to say that to the Colonel. The man seemed quite enamored with the leader of his country. “Like I said, I’m not the guy to ask.”

 

“Why have the Goa’uld not come back to Earth? It has bothered me greatly – it seems like with minimal effort the Goa’uld could bomb us from orbit. The Americans seem convinced that they’ve been too busy to attack us, but I’ve never met a military too busy to invade a nation that makes a habit of assassinating their leaders.” Queried Major Vallarin, his eyes twinkling with the eagerness of a boy who’d found out that every fairy tale he’d ever dreamed up might well be real. “Why would you not come back?”

 

I snorted, translating the question for the benefit of my Goa’uld speaking compatriots. They found it hilariously funny. I let Enlil wipe the tears from his eyes before I answered the boy’s question. I didn’t intent to mock the young man, but I needed it to be obvious that my answer wasn’t a Goa’uld prevarication. I chose to address my answer to the Mercenary Kincaid rather than to the boy directly, “Kincaid. How many vampires are there in the Red Court?”

 

“Nobody’s sure. Thousands, maybe millions – they breed too quickly to get an accurate count and go to war internally with enough regularity to make their population fluctuate wildly.” He chewed his lip. “Enough to be in charge of South America.”

 

“Thomas, how many vampires are in the White Court?” I continued, addressing the question to my brother.

 

“Enough.” Thomas replied succinctly. I knew that they weren’t as numerous as the Red Court, given that they were forced to reproduce the old-fashioned way, but there would still be many thousands of the psychophages.

 

“The thing you saw, the creature we had to nuke, that was only one Vampire. One who’d grown very old and very powerful but given enough time and enough preparation they can all potentially grow that powerful. There are millions of them and they’ve had thousands of years to consolidate power.” I replied as though it were the most obvious answer in the world, though admittedly the horrifying scale of it hadn’t quite occurred to me till I actually said it out loud. “And they’re some of the less scary things that live on this planet.”

 

“There are scarier?” Vallarin queried in confusion.

 

“Koschei comes to mind.” I muttered darkly, “Old Gods left behind after the Goa’uld left, demons, Fallen Angels of the Lord –”

 

“Angels are real?” Interrupted Kirensky. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever actually heard the lantern jawed Russian speak aloud before, his voice grumbled in a way that gave the distinct impression that he wasn’t commonly in the practice of using it. The immediacy and urgency of the question took me aback.

 

“Yep. Heaven, Hell, Jesus, the whole megillah – it’s all real. Not just it, mind you, there are a bunch of different afterlives and pantheons, but that one most definitely is real.” I shrugged, “I’ve met a couple Angels. They seemed nice enough. A couple Fallen Angels as well. They were… less agreeable.”

 

“I would not expect you to bring up rival religions to your own following.” Kincaid interjected in a voice of mildly pleased surprise.

 

“Only an idiot would consider himself an actual rival of the White God.” I shivered, looking up and willing my intentions skyward. “I’ve met two Angels. Either one of them could have annihilated my entire kingdom with their pinky. As cosmic entities go, I’m small potatoes.”

 

“Good to know Mom left me in such capable hands.” Thomas joked, his face looking more and more gaunt as we continued our trek. The hand device had fixed the physical issues with his body, allowing him to ignore his hunger but not actually abating it. The issue of feeding my brother had been delayed, not removed entirely. It annoyed me that I couldn’t fault Ammit’s hypervigilance over him or find a particularly pressing flaw in her assertion that Thomas’ method of consuming people was less messy but no less deadly for the people it was inflicted upon.

 

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to deal with anything higher up the food chain than I am.” I joked back, repeating to myself that I’d somehow find a way to satisfy Thomas without breaking my moral code. “The more powerful something gets, the less human morality applies to it.”

 

It felt oddly cathartic to answer their questions as we crossed the desert landscape. I’d had a couple of students over the years, few of whom could be properly called an apprentice. The one major foray I’d tried into the area of tutoring had ended extremely poorly for my student. I still felt guilty for not having been able to help Kim Delaney. It had probably been the right thing not to give her the information she’d been asking for about the summoning circle – there weren’t many safe or reasonable causes to have that information – but having made the “right” choice hadn’t made her any less dead.

 

I wish I could say that I’d come to some grand epiphany for what information was safe to give out after the Loup-garou incident. Hell, I’d be happy for just feeling confident that the right choice had actually been the right choice. But I’m a Wizard, not a… huh… well…. Uh, I technically was a god but that didn’t seem to have done much to improve my decision making. Omniscience didn’t come in my godhood starter package.

 

Fortunately, stamina did, given that we’d been walking for at least thirty minutes through the dunes. At least I think it had been about that long. The Goa’uld computer strapped to my gauntlet was set to Nekheb’s method of measuring time, which was in a base 12 system for measuring the passage of day into night for an entirely different planet. I wasn’t great at calculating the conversion on the fly.

 

Hell’s Bells, I wasn’t really great at reading it not on the fly. I wasn’t exactly bound by a strict schedule any more. The very idea that I would be considered either early to or late for anything on Nekheb was almost preposterous. If I felt the need to do something at the crack of dawn or the dead of the night, everyone around me would just hop to it without much of a fuss. It was probably not the best thing for me in terms of living a grounded lifestyle.

 

“Stop,” Ammit growled in irritation as we crested the dune, her eyes surveying the landscape before us in irritation. “Warden – we have a problem.”

 

She didn’t need to verbalize the problem in question for me to understand her dilemma. Having never actually been to Cairo, I didn’t quite realize how suburban the area surrounding the pyramids actually was. Once we’d passed the crest of the dune, I couldn’t see any single angle to the north of us that wasn’t just utterly covered with electric lights. It was the middle of the night and tourists still covered the landscape like locusts. I suppose it should have seemed obvious to me, it was one of the most famous places on Earth, but I’d sort of forgotten that Pyramids were something to be considered strange or interesting.

 

“Crap. Is there anywhere to get to this thing without going through that?” I groaned, speaking to her in Goa’uld.

 

“No.” Ammit muttered in irritation. “I hid a transport ship near the Great Pyramid before Koschei took me captive, but it’s in the middle of… that.”

 

“Perfect.” Kincaid grinned, handing his weapons over to one of the Russians. “I’ll be right back. Vampire, if you wouldn’t mind?”

 

“Uh, what?” Thomas blinked.

 

“We’re going to secure transport.” Kincaid pointed out into the distant blackness, towards one of the barely visible groups of tourists. “The bus on the left. Do you see it’s driver.”

 

“Yeah I can see her.” Thomas replied before making a noise of recognition, “I can see her. I get it.”

 

“We just need the bus, not a corpse or a thrall. You think you can manage that.” The mercenary asserted.

 

“Frustrated not fornicated, aye.” My brother joked, though I worried as to his sincerity. Given alternative seemed to be for them to steal a bus without the driver’s permission, it seemed worth the risk. I didn’t need to be involving Egyptian law enforcement in addition to everything else we’d dealt with today.

 

The two men scurried into the darkness beyond my line of sight as we crouched down to make ourselves less visible. I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked over to the eager face of my High Priestess. She whispered to me plaintively, “Lord Warden, if I may be so bold, what is your goal in educating these heathens? I cannot understand what you speak to them except when you consult the other gods, but it is clear that you are showing them the wisdom of the Warden’s Path. You often offer the path to those who do not believe but offer sparing information to those who follow your word. Why do you do this?”

 

“Muminah, when I speak to you, the first thing you do is try to find the secret meaning in my story. The clergy seems to believe that every word I say holds a secret meaning to it. If I were to tell you that I didn’t like the color red, I might wake to a Kingdom that has banned all things red because they are sinful. If I tell them that I don’t like the color Red, they’ll tell me ‘Too bad, we already picked the color of our Flag before you got here.” I looked back into her reverent expression, mildly annoyed that I could virtually see the parable being written in her mind even as I explained why not to do that. “I don’t worry about them having me make up their minds on their behalf. I can speak to them freely because I know they’re going to make their own choices with what I tell them.”

 

“Should I not listen to your wisdom, Lord Warden?” Muminah queried in polite confusion.

 

“You have a perfectly functioning brain between your ears, Muminah. I expect you to listen, learn, and make your own choices.” I sighed. “I don’t know all the answers, Muminah. I’m flawed. I make bad choices. I say things that aren’t true because I don’t know better. I even lie sometimes.”

 

“Really going for the hard-sell on keeping a functioning chain of command with the clergy there, Warden.” Ammit snorted, rolling her eyes. “The doctrine of ‘don’t listen to me’ is going to end up biting you in the ass when one of them decides they’re smarter than you are.”

 

“We would never defy the Warden’s will.” Muminah replied, scandalized.

 

“Child, never is a very long time.” Ammit replied softly. “And you are too young to know even a fraction of its breadth.”

 

“They’re coming.” The Russian Colonel cut across Ammit as a set of headlights broke away from one of the clusters of Tourists. A bus was driving off-road, plodding through the rough, rocky sand in a beeline for our hiding place.

 

The gas guzzling behemoth trundled towards us, garumphing and clanking as it went. It was an ugly machine that looked like it was a relic of the flower child era kept in service with a mix of duct tape and prayer. There had doubtlessly been better options, but Kincaid knew that he had magic to contend with in addition to everything else.

 

The machine grunted to a hissing halt, its airbrakes screeching in a way that had me seriously doubting their functionality as the door swung open. Kincaid was sitting in the first row, immediately behind my brother’s position in the driver’s seat. The mercenary would never allow a predator behind him if he could avoid it, and his hand hovered near a bulge in his shirt that I suspected was a concealed weapon.

 

Thomas took a perverse degree of glee in addressing us the unmistakable nasally, irritating tone adopted by every tour guide I’d ever dealt with. “All aboard for the intergalactic Russian tourist bureau, next stop Giza Plateau.”

 

We embarked within the bus, sitting amidst the bags, backpacks, and purses left behind by tourists who would likely be incensed to discover their belongings had been stolen. I opened the nearest handbag, flipping though its contents till I found a map. It was of the touristy variety, designed for visual appeal rather than geographic accuracy. Based upon the ruinously cheery cartoon images and chaotic symbols, I guessed that it had been a Japanese tourist group whose bus we’d stolen.

 

I spread out the map as the bus started moving, turning to Ammit and asking, “Ok, where is he driving us exactly?” in English to be sure that Thomas understood what was being said.

 

Ammit considered the map before tapping a talon on the map twice. “There.”

 

I burst out laughing. “You’re kidding right?”

 

“No, I am quite certain that the cache is beneath that location. I used the Sphynx as a point of reference.” Ammit asserted, speaking in broken English.

 

“Do I even want to know?” Thomas inquired, doing his best to navigate into the late night traffic of southern Cairo.

 

“We need to go to the Mariott.” I replied, trying and failing to keep a straight face at the sheer absurdity of it. “There’s a space ship under their golf course.”

 

“Of course, there is.” Thomas replied calmly. I had a brief, irrational moment of annoyance as I realized that this meant that Thomas absolutely knew about both space ships and aliens before I met him, followed by even greater annoyance that I wouldn’t be able to call him out for not having told me. This was the sort of thing that an older brother was supposed to confide in his sibling.

 

“How many of these caches are there on Earth?” Inquired the Colonel eagerly.

 

I translated his question to Ammit who considered the matter before replying, using me once again as an interlocutor to say. “I only left five of them, and I’m not about to give away the locations of my ways off this horrible hellhole of a world. I’m sure that other gods left their own caches of stuff, but I don’t know where you’d begin to look for one of them that wasn’t crawling with vampires or in Yu’s old stomping grounds.”

 

“She means China,” I added, continuing from her translation. “Lord Yu used to be the Emperor of China.”

 

“Would the Americans have found one of these Caches yet?” Inquired the Colonel nervously, once again using me as interlocutor.

 

Ammit just shrugged but Enlil actually voiced an answer. I translated, though I suspected that I did a poor job of keeping the surprise from my voice as I said. “I don’t know how they would have. It’s not like we were ever able to conquer the northern part of that damn continent. Hathor tried several times, but they were always too protected.”

 

I couldn’t say if the Colonel’s expression was more pleased or bothered. He had a perpetual expression somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. His expression abruptly turned to one of shock as the Bus slowed to a halt and there was a sound of breaking glass, followed soon after by a snarl of pain from Ammit as glowing green blood splattered across her seat. She ripped something out of her side, revealing a stone headed arrow attached to an ebony shaft. It was an elegantly crafted weapon, perfect in balance and artistry. Too perfect, in fact, to be of mortal make.

 

“Fairies!” I shouted, shoving Muminah’s unarmored body to the floor as arrows started pelting the bus. It would seem that even the Erlking couldn’t keep up with Summer’s hitters any more. I blasted an axe-wielding goat man off the side of the bus as Thomas floored it, driving the bus through a red-light heedless of the screeching horns from the other drivers.

 

The ancient bus’ engine screeched in protest as Thomas forced it forwards, bashing through several parked cars in his way as he grinned like a maniac. Not nearly fast enough for my liking as creatures of Titania’s realm charged us, pursuing us with a frenzied hatred only equal that that I’d seem Summer Fae display to the forces of Winter.

 

“Fire at will!” The Colonel screamed, flinging a shrapnel grenade into a cluster of the goat-men before shooting a multicolored Eagle in the head. I blasted a volvo sized moth with a gout of fire, setting its wings alight and sending it screaming into a pike-wielding satyr. Kincaid scrupulously did not join the battle, continuing to sit in his chair.

 

“You want to give us a hand here?” I growled, clubbing a goat-man in the face as it tried to force itself through a shattered window.

 

“No.” Kincaid replied simply. “They’re here for you, not me. They’re fairies. They can’t kill unless except in self defense unless it has been explicitly permitted by their queen, and even then there are rules to it.”

 

“If they crash this bus, I don’t think it will matter one iota.” I snarled, flinching as Ammit tore the head of what seemed to have been a Sidhe noble from his shoulders. The green skinned man’s surprised expression dulled as the leaves growing from his head in the place of hair wilted. “They’re not exactly taking a roll call here.”

 

“I will not leave myself defenseless.” Kincaid replied, not even flinching as an arrow zipped past his face, pinging off the pauldron of my armor. “But I am not trespassing on fairy. This is the mortal realm. There are rules.”

 

“They feel a bit more like guidelines under the circumstances!” I snarled, blasting a tiny winged thing with a nasty looking sabre out the back window of the bus as it tried to stab Enlil in the back. The jabbering thing howled angrily as it hit the pavement, going under the wheels of a passing car as its driver blared the horn furiously. Apparently even invading fairies weren’t enough to convince Egyptian commuters to slow down.

 

It was at this point that Thomas swore and spun the wheel furiously, only by the grace of his preternatural reflexes managing to keep the bus from tipping over as he course corrected ninety degrees to avoid the truly massive shape that had formerly been in front of us as it slammed an obsidian axe down in the middle of the street. A massive fairy standing in the middle of the road, something that might have resembled a man riding a horse if one didn’t have the glowing light of both the man and the horse’s eyes to illuminate the skinless horror that the fairy truly was.

 

It was as though someone had taken the flensed torso of a man and knitted it to the sinews of a skinned horse, then lit them both on fire. I recognized the creature, though I admit I’d rather hoped it was one of the legends that had been exaggerated. It wasn’t a fairy in its own right, by my understanding. It was more of a curse on wicked men, a trick that Summer Fae might play upon a particularly greedy and evil man in times of old.

 

The Nuckelavee were particularly malevolent things, vain and cruel men who’d once sought power from the Sidhe and cursed to be as ugly on the outside as they’d been within. They were the sort of creature that would only grow meaner and stronger over time and judging by how it towered over the buildings around us it was both old enough and mean enough to put up a proper fight. I was reasonably confident that I’d be able to take it in a fight. Not easily, but it was doable.

 

Which, of course, is why Titania had sent four of them.


	22. Chapter 22

So, there we were, wildly outnumbered by rag-tag group of murderous fairies and facing a quartet of H.R. Geiger’s answer to how to make a My Little Pony. My companions were engaged in various states of combat as they struggled to keep the wave after wave of doom as directed by Disney away from the barely chugging hippy wagon. We at least had the advantage of poor aerodynamic construction on our side, the thick ferrous sides of the bus limiting the potential points of egress into the bus to the windows. The Russians were firing so wildly they seemed likely to run out of ammunition at any moment.

 

I barely noticed the rest of the fight as the Nuckelavee charged, bearing halberds nearly as large as the bus we were riding in. The wizard Harry Dresden would have been terrified. The god Harry Dresden was almost positive that he was going to lose this fight and watch his friends die. The mantle of the Lord Warden Dre’su’den the Ha’ri, empowered by the belief of an entire planet worth of worshippers?

 

It was 1000% down for what was coming, and I’d broken the dam I’d placed upon it in my mind when I’d tapped into it in the Nevernever. Power rippled along my arms, shattering the chainmail between my gauntlets and pauldron as my porcelain skin shimmered and boiled. Ugly black lines of starlight rippled within my veins, spreading out in a spidery pattern as I braced my staff in my elbow, pointing it up and at the nearest of the Nuckelavee as it swung down with a massive halberd. The galloping beast was having little difficulty in catching the ancient bus as my brother weaved it through traffic. Long, skinless, and sinewy the beast’s footfalls made the earth shake beneath us as though we were in an earthquake.

 

I stared into the creature’s hateful, frenzied human face and grimaced at the sight of it. It was foul, even for a monster of the Nevernever. What might have once been mortal meat was twisted and corpulent with disease, the hale red of the creature’s flensed chest met what at first might have appeared to be a mask but was truly a massive concoction of festering boils and rotting pustules around the creature’s burning eyes and jagged, broken teeth. The overpowering scent of burning sick and melting human tallow permeated the air as I watched the halberd descend, waiting till it was feet from the roof of the bus before bellowing, “Arietius.”

 

I had not spent the previous year just sitting idly by and feeling sorry for myself in my palace. I’d been training, learning and planning. I had a library of fifteen thousand years’ worth of magic to learn, and be damned if I hadn’t just been inclined to take a peek. Did you know, for example, that the ancient Egyptian gods found a way to compress entire, complex spells down to the inscriptions within a single hieroglyph? Or that multiple hieroglyphs can be inscribed upon a single object with overlapping lines in order to pool, multiply, and exponentially increase the effects when they are finally released? For example, when I’d made the elaborate staff in my hand I’d use a combination of my own existing runes and magic predating any written histories I’d ever seen and interwoven them. Seven hundred and seventy-seven overlapping runes were laid upon my staff, each individual cluster of runic kinetic collectors individually capable of storing what my old force rings had been capable of wholesale. Do you know what even one tenth of that amount of Kinetic force can do when it’s unleashed? Do you know what happens when half is unleashed?

 

The Nuckelavee did – that’s for sure.

 

The roof of the bus blasted off the moving vehicle entirely as a tsunami of kinetic force tore fourth from my staff, months’ worth of collected kinetic energy thrusting out like a battering ram. The putrid, burning giant exploded into a shower of rotting meat and plague-ridden viscera as the roof of the bus hit it at super-sonic speeds. Long horse-legs tore from the towering body and flew around willy-nilly, massive bulk crushing cars and homes even as the fairy dissolved into ectoplasm. The Nuckelavee behind it was able to move out of the way, but only just so – screaming in agony as the ferrous projectile tore the creature’s left arm from its socket to leave a smoking crater of burning vitriol pouring from the creature’s open wound.

 

I laughed. It came to me easily, a long and manic laugh that sounded less like my own and more like the demented cackling of a man committed. It was hollow, dark, and echoing in a way that was eerie even for the metallic basso of the Goa’uld. I couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t even want to stop laughing. The narcotic power of the mantle’s belief flowed in my veins, opiate thrumming encouraging me to greater violence.

 

I wanted this power – needed it to defeat the Nuckelavee. It was my power, earned. The part of me that was Harry Dresden knew that this was the mantle’s will, not my own, but it just felt so good to let it happen. I barely even noticed as my feet left the ground, a glowing nimbus of starlight and lightning lifting me from the floor of the bus to hover high enough to have an unobstructed view of those who dared try to assassinate a god.

 

“What the fuck?” The Major shouted, covering his head as the laws of physics seemed to cease to apply to me. He looked to the Colonel in the apparent hope that he might get more clarity from his commanding officer but found little relief from his superior officer. Zukhov was otherwise engaged up in the act of stabbing a butterfly winged monstrosity with a long purple tongue that spat caustic sparkles, and not predisposed to noticing anything beyond his immediate issue of personal safety.

 

Thunder rumbled in the skies, clouds filling the previously pristine air of Cairo. I whooped, my endless cackling howls of joy interspersed between every word as I screeched a challenge to the fairies, an unnatural sense of glee filling me as I considered the danger to life and limb. “Well come on then, there’s still three of you and only one of me. Give me a challenge!”

 

“Warden,” Ammit snarled, her voice edged with concern.

 

I ignored her, bobbing my head to the rhythm as I snapped my fingers, humming to the music as I faced danger with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Specifically, Queen.

 

Thump thump, clang. Thump thump, clang. I beat my staff against my chest and pauldron in time to the music, weaving will within the immortal words of words of Freddie Mercury. I’ve never been a particularly good singer. And while I’d like to claim that my mantle gave me some godly enhanced voice – no such luck. The deranged, near-homicidal metallic-echoes did little to improve the quality of my singing only gave the distinct impression that someone was playing a Queen album through a blender as I spoke the first words of my incantation. “Buddy you’re a boy make a big noise…”

 

It was when I got as far as “noise” that I realized that the sorcerous thunder of the summoned storm was cracking in echo of my madman’s melody. The skies broiled as a bolt of ensorcelled lightning came down on the “clang” of my pauldron, bright green energy colliding with the injured fairy. The monstrous creature crowed with agony, writhing on the ground as the dreadfully fulminous spell flensed the things muscles.

 

If felt good to use my power as I chanted the spell laced classic rock, summoning a rain of divine retribution upon the forces of Summer. Not just good. Food was good. Sex was good. This was beyond compare. I’d never actually done drugs, but this had to be what heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy felt like rolled up into one tasty package. The closest I’d come had been when a vampire of the Red Court had infected me with its saliva, but that hadn’t been even a fraction of what this felt like. I didn’t just feel powerful – that word wasn’t good enough to describe it. I felt like a god.

 

Creatures of Summer were monsters magnificent in their beauty and warmth, the nightmares of my adult life, and they were nuisances to the mantle of the Lord Warden. I hovered above the bus, fixed in place as the now topless hippy wagon turned abruptly, tilting me on my nimbus as it struggled to match the tight angle Thomas was forcing it to take. One of the remaining Nuckelavee stabbed towards me with its halberd, aiming too low and cutting through the broiling nimbus as it reflexively elevated me from danger. I pointed my staff into the creature’s eye, screaming “Rock you!” as the skies replied to my musically motivated magic. The electrical discharge came down from the sky, channeling through my body and out the tip of my staff as I tapped into it for another burst of pooled kinetic energy. The swirling tempest of kinetic energy pulped the beast’s rotting head, tearing it from the creature’s shoulders.

 

I got as far as “Sing it” when a stone dagger pierced my neck, crucifying my cutthroat conjuring karaoke. I ripped it out of my throat, stuffing it into my belt as I faced the direction of my attacker. A wizened looking goat man was riding a long tendril of flowering vine that appeared to have grown up from beneath his hooves, showering glowing petals in a seeming tsunami of living technicolor. His face was contorted in a look of abject hatred as he raced towards us, braying a furious challenge.

 

As the flesh of my neck knitted back together I caught a glimpse of three purple stoles hanging from the simple rope around the waist of his brown robe. Purple stoles, though they were frayed and faded with the passage of time, of the exact same make as those worn by members of the Senior Council of the White Council of wizards. The eldest and most dangerous Wizards on the planet earth, this guy had killed three of them.

 

He aimed a staff that felt all too familiar to me and brayed something that sounded vaguely Celtic. My helmet’s visor reacted instantly, slamming shut as a concentrated stream of Summer’s fire billowed towards us. I raised my defensive hand, bellowing “Defendarius!” to summon a spherical shield between us. Even tapping into my mantle, I struggled to extend the shield wide enough to protect the moving car from the overwhelming gout of flames. It was like someone had unleashed a small sun on us, oppressive heat leaking through even my enhanced version of my previous shield spell.

 

The magics I’d learned from the Goa’uld made ritual shielding device had informed my own defensive magics, allowing me to mitigate the effects of heat beyond any reasonable need to protect one’s self from fire. The curly horned aggressor did not appear to feel the need to limit himself to what I’d previously considered reasonable.

 

I was sincerely worried that the crystal foci in my gauntlet’s palm was going to rupture before the wave of flames gave out. Lucky for me – I hadn’t come alone. There was a loud crack of gunfire before the goat man fell off his vine, braying in pain as branches grasped out slow his fall. I looked down at the bus in surprise to see Enlil whispering into the ear of Kincaid as the mercenary pointed his weapon in the direction of where the fairy aggressor had previously been.

 

Kincaid held out his hand and accepted a handful of something from Enlil before sitting back on the chair. The sullen god shook his head at the man’s return to inaction, pulling his side-arm from and firing the Zat at an approaching fairy. At least one jewel encrusted braid was missing from the man’s beard. My eye twitched I knew that Enlil wore a lot of jewelry but precisely how much had those jewels been worth to motivate the mercenary from inaction? The single stint I’d hired Kincaid gave me a ball park estimate of how many zeroes I could put behind an afternoon of that man’s time.

 

It was a lot. I’d gotten a discount and it was still more money than I’d planned to earn in a career of private Wizarding. The man was wealthy enough that he didn’t just have “fuck you” money, he had “fuck me” money. So I could comfortably put a whole bunch of zeros behind how much a braid worth of jewelry was worth.

 

But if that was the case, then the staff I was holding was probably more valuable than the operating budget of Chicago – possibly Illinois as a whole. I only mention that to provide context to exactly why it felt utterly bizarre to be smashing it across the face of a winged fairy that tried to take me out. Trust Harry Dresden to be given a fortune in gemstones and turn it into the word’s gaudiest cudgel.

 

One of the creatures died with a piteous snapping of breaking muscle and sinew, dissolving into ectoplasm as I pointed my staff at one of the two remaining Nuckelavee, releasing all of my remaining stored kinetic energy at the giant equine monster. It didn’t hit the beast quite as hard as I’d hit the first, but it was more than adequate to rip the horse-head from the creature’s lower body. The malformed monster clutched at it’s decapitated equine portion, desperately trying to force its innards to stay inside as the lower half spasmed and died.

 

As I considered the best route to assaulting the remaining Nuckelavee I felt a stabbing sensation of inquiry within my mind. Not a mental attack – more strangely direct, there was a voice pressing against the will of the Mantle. A reverent chant – the High Priestess Muminah was willing her worship to me, invoking words in the name of the Lord Warden. I tried to dismiss the insistent query, but I couldn’t cast aside the pure sincerity of it. Just a single word, repeated over and over again. “Listen.”

 

Ok, but to what? There were so many noises that between the gunfire, blaring horns, and spells one could hardly tell them apart. Was this just a generic prayer? No – it was too immediate, too precious a plea. The Priestess needed me to listen to something specific. But what?

 

Common sense suggested it was something that she was capable of hearing, so I tilted my head and did my best to listen. I’m pretty good at it actually, it’s not magic – not really – but most people seem to lack the talent. I focused, raising my shield to give me a respite to the combat for a second as I separated out the individual noises.

 

Ammit – she was trying to get me to listen to Ammit. The Goddess was beneath the smoking pillar of etheric smoke, hopping up and down as she tried to grab me by the ankle. The saurian goddess was furious, bellowing, “Let go! You’re going to get yourself killed – you need to let go!”

 

Let go? Of what? The only thing I was holding was my staff. I dismissed the suggestion as preposterous, flinging a wave of flames as the intoxicating power pumped through my star-flecked veins. Stars and stones this felt good.

 

“Let go of the mantle!” Ammit snarled. “You need to let go of the mantle!”

 

Preposterous – I scoffed at the very idea of it as the divinity vibrated from my very core, shivering in ecstasy as the spidery patterns of inky black spread out further and further along my arms. An icy shiver of power rumbled through me as I tapped deeper and deeper into the well of power, digging for something to end this fight. The mantle eagerly offered me power, sending a seductive sense of numb cold up my fingers that ought to have terrified me even as it turned my silver-white fire a sickly shade of green along the edges. It felt so good that I almost didn’t even mind as the flesh around the veins began to rot and fall away from the exposed white bone.

 

“Damn it Warden, listen to me or we will all die. Me, Enlil, the Archive, your priestess and even your precious phage will die!” Ammit hissed. “You’ll be dead and the rest of us won’t be able to put up much of a fight long after.”

 

“I’m the only thing protecting us!” I protested lamely as my shield hand shook, hunks of muscle falling from the bone of my arm at an alarming rate.

 

“You’ve been a god for less than a decade, I was alive in the time of Apep.” Ammit snarled. “Stop arguing with me!”

 

I closed my eyes and tried to let go of the power. The mantle did not want to go. The Lord Warden Dre’su’den was exercising his will, and he would not be silenced easily. I found myself arguing with my own self-image, trying to offer it justifications to placate the collected will of the mantle. Self-preservation proved an entirely worthless reason not to be in the thick of things, as did avoiding harm to my compatriots. It ultimately took the implication that harm would befall a mortal, Muminah, for the well of power to recede in past my mental dam – disempowering me even as the cloud lowered me to the floor of the bus. I felt a stab of agony as inky black smoke pooled down from exposed bone as my flesh re-knit itself.

 

I looked from the no longer gaping wounds to Ammit, trying to articulate a sufficient mix of apology and thanks when I was abruptly ripped from the bus, full body whiplash running through me as I smacked against an invisible barrier put up in the bus’ path – crushed like a bug on a windshield. As my bones snapped back into place I rose up in bafflement, lifting my broken body with my staff. I was in front of the entrance to the Marriott. I was outdoors. Sure, there was a fence around the property, but it was a damn hotel. It shouldn’t have even had enough of a threshold to bother me.

 

Another wave of force hit me, shoving me up against the sheer surface of the threshold as the remaining Nuckelavee pinned me against it with his halberd, putting me in direct line of sight to the security guard as he casually exited the guard post. The overweight Egyptian man looked from me, to the bus that had stopped down the road – momentum having carried it a long way past the guard post even as Thomas had stomped his foot on the breaks. He snorted derisively as he eyed the people disembarking the bus and running towards us, seemingly unbothered by the scene unfolding around him.

 

He smiled at me, blinking in a way that exposed familiarly wide, black eyes beneath the skin mask imitating mortal form – several times too large for a human or even a vampire.

 

Svartalves, just perfect.


	23. Chapter 23

I could feel my bones beginning to knit themselves back together after having taken the full force of hitting the flat surface of the threshold at seventy miles an hour, the floppy, near-gelatinous mess of meat contained within the confines of my armor as I forced my boneless muscles to move. All things considered, I was grateful for the pain, it distracted me from how utterly screwed I was.

 

I hobble-walked forwards, shuffling weakly towards the threshold in blind panic as a lifetime worth of Wizard knowledge provided me with a step by step explanation of all the things that ought to have occured to me by now. Not the least of which was the realization that thresholds were no longer a holdfast behind which I could cross without permission. They’d always been part of my calculations as a wizard - walking over a threshold without permission robbed a wizard of significant power - but up to this point I’d still essentially been thinking of myself as a mortal wizard with some new toys, not a supernatural being no longer governed by the rules of magic as I previously knew them.

 

I was a being of spirit bound to a mortal form. Beings of spirit could not cross a threshold without permission. It had never even occurred to me as a potential problem, I’d been walking into and out buildings without difficulty for months. But every single building I’d entered had been part of my desmine or inhabited by people who worshipped me. The subterranean cave cities of the Unas might have had enough of a threshold to bar me entry, but One Eye had adopted me as a tribal elder. Hell, even the buildings I’d visited on Earth had been by “invitation” even if my own attendance hadn’t been of my own free will.

 

I wasn’t sure if I was crying from the pain or the bitter reality of yet another thing divorcing me from ever returning to what I had once been, but my vision blurred as I steadied myself against the sheer face of the threshold. My gauntlet sparked against the invisible barrier, Svartalf magic pushing back with enough force to discourage beings of spirit without hurting them. It was a polite suggestion to “stay away” rather than something to actually hurt a being of spirit but I knew enough about Svartalves to not brute force my way past that wall. Svartalves didn’t screw around when it came to protecting themselves. There would be additional protections against someone foolish enough to test that barrier. Not might, there would be additional protections.

 

Nothing worse than a supernatural nasty with a decent sense of self-preservation paired with a healthy dose of common sense. Those are the ones that bite you in the ass.

 

I screamed as a halberd ran through my chest, the fairy made weapon piercing my spine and pinning me against the sheer face of the threshold. My hand spasmed reflexively, letting go of my staff before I realized what I’d done. No longer bound to my spiritual self, the weapon was carried by gravity. It tumbled over the threshold and to the road in front of me, tantalizingly close but maddeningly far.

 

The Nuckelavee howled with cruel laughter, kicking me with its wide hooves as it dragged me back and away from the threshold. Thinking was beginning to grow difficult as burning sensation spread out from where the weapon pierced my chest, supernatural vitriol from the monster infecting me. Nuckelavee were bringers of plague and poison, and while I was quite certain that no mere illness could kill me any more damn if the Nuckelavee wasn’t about to try. I found myself in the world’s worst modern interpretation of Fantasia, broken, stabbed, and beset at all sides by justifiably angry fairy folk as the Nuckelavee smashed me beneath its hooves, ripping my arms out at the sockets and tossing them to the side.

 

“Don’t kill him.” Spoke a cultured voice as the “drag-thump” foot falls of fae noble approached me. Kincaid’s shot at the goat-man seemed to have wounded but not killed the staff-wielding goat man. He was favoring the haunch that had not been perforated by the mercenary’s bullet, using his staff as a walking aid rather than a magical implement. He looked down at me with goatish eyes, expression more alien to me than any creature I’d met thus far. “The Queen wants to deal with him in person.”

 

“Let me go!” Ok, it was a stupid thing to say but there are some things that you just say out loud when you’re trapped in spite of knowing how stupid they are. Call it hostage etiquette. And I find that my witty repartee is somewhat sub-par after being quartered.

 

The hoary sidhe kneeled down next to me, his hot breath smelling of hay and honeysuckle even as his words were filled with utter venom. “Heka, were the choice mine to make, I would end you here and now. Be pleased that the Queen has more mercy for you than I.”

 

“I am not Heka.” I groaned.

 

“I care not for your title, only that you’ve chosen to bring about the end of one I love.” The goat man chuffed, idly looking at the wall of fairy warriors that had formed between us as the resort. Hundreds of Summer's greatest warriors stood between us my allies. There would be no rescue. He followed my gaze, smiling his caprine grin. “Yes - know that you are powerless. I want you to understand hopelessness. I want you to understand desperation.”

 

He jabbed his staff into my shoulder and whispered a word, planting a seed within my flesh. I howled agony as vines sprouted from the seed, burrowing into my flesh and spreading out through my muscles with angry thorns. He watched me writhing in pain, pinned beneath the halberd, tugging at his beard with a look of mild amusement. “I was there when Titania told Aurora you had engineered her death, you see. I saw the hope die in a child’s eyes as she found out that she would not live past the week’s end. I’m sure that you know the look, your kind inflicts it upon mortals often, but I think you lack the necessary context to realize its import.”

 

He kicked me,clipping my head with his hoof hard enough to chip the tip of it. “Your kind doesn’t love - not truly. You’re too divorced from the memory of immortality to understand it. But I know. I know love. I love Aurora like one of my own and you chose to kill her.”

 

He smashed his staff across my back, yanking up with the shepherds crook to rip the vines from my body-shredding my innards with the razor-sharp vines as he did so. “But she is not the only woman I love. So, before I fulfil my Queen’s desire to drop you within the darkest oubliette in fairy to spend eternity in darkness and pain, I will have an answer. Revenge will sate me but I cannot help my Queen heal without understanding the source of her pain.”

 

He squatted, lifting my head to eye level as he spoke in tones of utter contempt. “So I will make you an offer. It is a meagre offer, but the best I have to give. Tell me why you have done this monstrous thing. Tell me why you have elected to kill the Summer lady. If you speak truth, I promise that there will be an eventual end to your suffering.”

 

I laughed, sadly. “You’re offering to kill me eventually?”

 

“It is a better offer than you deserve.” The sidhe replied morosely. “But I would not see passion overcome all reason.”

 

I felt a tug at the back of my mind, a warm sensation that I’d felt before when I allowed myself to tap into the mantle on the helicopter. A rush of hope ran through me as I realized what was happening. Perhaps I would get out of this after all. Provided, of course, that I could keep the sidhe talking so that he didn’t notice what Muminah was doing.

 

My High Priestess was summoning me. She didn’t have my true name, but even an imperfect summoning ritual could allow a supernatural being to come to the summoner provided that the entity being summoned actually wanted to be summoned.

 

And I really, really wanted to be summoned right now. I pooled my will surreptitiously, trying to invert the summoning spell I’d used for years. Creating a spell on the fly was always a dangerous proposition. Creating a spell to translocate my corporeal form was utter madness but we’d sort of crossed a threshold for crazy when we’d nuked arboreal Russia.

 

I willed a prayer to the universe that the sidhe was too focused upon his revenge to notice my severed arms clenching my palms in frustration as I struggled to form the spell I hoped would save me from my current predicament. Which meant I needed the sidhe good and angry so that he was making bad decisions. That was one skill for which I required none of my magic.

 

I have it on good authority that I can be remarkably vexing when I feel so inclined. I did my best imitation of Enlil’s tone of beleaguered spite and replied to the sidhe noble. “Aurora was in no danger until she chose to kill Ronald Reuel and steal the Summer Knight’s mantle.”

 

The sidhe looked at me with alien contempt, his tone a measured mask of indifference as he queried. “Explain.”

 

“The Summer Lady had the Summer Knight killed.” I shrugged the stumps of my shoulders. “She’s planning on killing all life on Earth because she’s totally bonkers. Call me crazy, but I felt like that had to be stopped.”

 

“You could have killed the Summer Knight or seen to having him killed.” The Sidhe interjected.

 

“Billy boy, I’m sure that by now you’re aware that the Summer Knight died. There are only a couple people capable of pulling that off without giving the power back to the Summer Queen. I’m not one of them. Plus… you know, subtle planning.. The whole ‘hide who was involved’ requires a deft touch.” I flopped my torso from side to side to emphasize the shake of my head. “I don’t know if if you’ve noticed, subtlety isn’t really my schtick.”

 

“You are lying.” The sidhe stated matter of factly.

 

“The hell I am.” I snorted. “The Summer Lady had the Summer Knight axed and is keeping his power to dump it in that stupid table.”

 

“Summer cannot take up arms against itself.” Replied the sidhe.

 

“Well bucko, you’d better start digging deep to figure out how that “cannot” becomes a bit more flexible, because she both “can” and “did” kill Reuel.” I snorted.

 

“I will get the truth from you eventually.” The sidhe replied sadly. “I had hoped to avoid pain beyond the limits of minimal necessity.”

 

“About that… “ I smiled behind my mask, opening my clenched fists and sending motes of starlight from my fingertips. “Gonna have to rain check that one.”

 

“No!” The Sidhe Lord brayed in fury as my body dissolved into starlight, my power dissolving my corporeal body in an instant.

 

I suddenly understood why every creature I’d ever summoned had been so angry about having been summoned. Even as a willing participant in the process, being summoned was wildly unpleasant. The relative discomfort of astral projection was nothing in comparison to allowing someone to summon my physical form. The first feeling when one is summoned is one of utter absence. One is doused in an utter void without light, thought, time, feeling or sensation. I don’t know how long the void actually lasts, it could have been seconds or centuries, but just as I started to lose hope that there would ever be an end to the nothingness I was abruptly thrust back into a world of pain. The only feeling worse than briefly ceasing to exist is having the universe force you back into existence.

 

I screamed a series of sounds that had been intended to form swear words, but mostly came out as guttural utterances of pain as my body formed from starlight and plumes of ensorcelled flames within the summoning circle Muminah had drawn on the sandy ground. I staggered drunkenly within the circle, dizzy from the ordeal as my high priestess broke the circle with her toe and knelt prostrate before me. “Forgive my impudence, Lord Warden, but I felt that it was unfair to the Summer Court to rob them of so many capable warriors.”

 

“Was that a joke at my expense?” I asked in amazement, twisting the kinks out of my newly reformed neck. I needed either a chiropractor or an ectomancer… maybe both.

 

“No my Lord.” Muminah flinched. “I’m sorry my Lord.”

 

“Don’t be, it was a decent joke and the jackass needs a reminder that he isn’t invincible.” Ammit interjected, tossing me my staff as she looked out at the furious fairy army trapped on the other side of the threshold. “And if someone had let us know that he didn’t have a damn clue how to use his powers, he wouldn’t have needed to be saved by a little girl.”

 

Enlil barked out a long laugh, “Are you of all people, criticizing a man for seeking out a woman’s aid?”

 

“When it directly insults the ego of the chauvinistic, short-sighted, man-child who has allowed to trap me on a hell-world because he was too short-sighted to seek out the wisdom of his elders to avoid communal capture and torture - yes I damn well do.” Ammit’s eyes flared as she jabbed my chest with a talon. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

 

“Ammit, I…” She cut me off, clearly not interested in my answer.

 

“I don’t care! Here is who you actually are. You are a child many thousands of years my junior who has stumbled into power that you are only beginning to understand and are clearly too stubborn to wield wisely.” Ammin started counting off mistakes on her taloned fingers, highlighting my personal failings with each digit. “You lied to me about who you were. You lied to us about how much you actually know. You lied about how much you were involved with the fairly courts. You lie so much that I suspect it comes to you more naturally that breathing at this point. We are your allies, your inner circle. We have no choice but to foster your success and you are hamstringing us at every possible chance out of some misguided need to maintain total control. Stop fighting us and trust us or you are going to get us all killed.”

 

“Ammit - cease.” Enlil stood between me and the huge predator.

 

“You dare to interrupt me?” Ammit growled.

 

“I am your Elder, Ammit. And I know the fear of not knowing one’s true allies. I know fear better than any Goa’uld alive.” Enlil spoke in a voice of measured calm. “We are not the pantheon you remember us as being. I know that the memory of nobility is alive and well in your heart, but the souls of the Goa’uld have become petty and small. Trust is unwise in the new blood and the Lord Warden is not half the fool you are treating him as.”

 

“Thank you I…” Enlil shot me a withering glare and spoke over me.

 

“You are still five times the fool you believe yourself to be Warden. I will be teaching you statecraft and basic competence in ruling a realm. You are a King, if you wish to be one or not, and I will not serve a sub-standard king.” Enlil’s lip curled in amusement. “You shall become a worthy ruler even if I have to break you and start off from nothing.”

 

There was a loud coughing noise as I remembered that my summoning had been anything but private. Our Earth born mortal and near-mortal companions were watching our exchange in mixed bafflement and fascination. My brother had been his throat loud enough to be heard over the angry conversation in Goa’uld. “So… uh… now that we’re done yelling at each other, does anyone want to talk to the giant grey man from Roswell?”

 

The Svartalf had divested himself of his flesh mask, the lanky grey figure taller than either Ammir or I. Curiously, Ammit seemed entirely at ease with the Svartalf, reaching out her hand to grasp the creature by the wrist in greeting. The creature returned the gesture and spoke a few words in a vaguely norse sounding language. Ammit replied to him, bowing her head differentially to the Svartalf and pointing to each of us in turn.

 

The Svartalf nodded and held up its free hand. Glowing motes of light darted out from it and planted themselves next to our ears. They fluttered with a vague insect-like buzz before bursting into stardust, bathing our heads in a cool sensation of subtle magic. The Svartalf’s mouth continued to move with the same jerky motions of the Nordic language but the meaning he’d intended to convey came out as clear as day.

 

“Ma’am, if you would please come this way with the rest of your party we can talk with the hotel manager.” The Svartalf security guard seemed more or less unbothered by both my small cadres of misfits. “I’m not senior enough to address a hospitality contract predating the Unseelie Accords.”

 

“I can understand him!” The mustachioed Russian soldier interjected eagerly. “The words, they make sense!”

 

“Translation magic.” Kincaid replied, an impressed note in his voice.

 

“A damn good variant of it too.” I agreed, more than just a little bit impressed. Translation spells weren’t easy, one had to create a spell capable of both understanding and altering sounds in real time based on the speaker’s intent. To create a spell capable of translating Goa’uld, English, Norse, and Russian in real time so that each language could be understood immediately required an extremely fine control over the magic used in the spell. To do that over a dozen times at once meant the Svartalf not only had a razor fine control of his magic but also a boatload of magic to back it up.

 

The Svartalf’s lipless mouth quirked up in what might have been a smile. Great, he had an ego to go right along with that power. “Ma’am?”

 

“We will consent to meet with the manager.” Ammit agreed. “I would see how how my property is being tended in my absence.”

 

“Of course Ma’am.” The Svartalf bowed. “Welcome home. Giza has missed you in your absence.”


	24. Chapter 24

Svartalves were a group for whom a philosophy of business was less “live and let live” was closer to “live and be allowed to continue drawing breath in their presence.” I’d met them, briefly, while working a case. One of my clients, a Bigfoot by the name of Strength of a River on his Shoulders, had hired me to protect his son from supernatural malfeasance that had transpired to be a couple of Svartalf bullies with a nasty guardian who could have cleaned my clock without breaking a sweat.

 

I’d luckily been able to resolve the conflict with the Svartalf bullies without having to involve myself directly and put myself at odds with their guardian. I’d never actually seen the Svartalf magic, but I knew enough about their lore to decide that it was a brand of nasty I never wanted inflicted upon me. They were old school creatures who never spelled vengeance without capitalizing the “V.” By all accounts, however, they were one of the less malevolent nations of the supernatural world. Provided that one kept one word to them and offered them nothing that they might perceive as an insult to them or threat to their interests, one could be certain that it would not be the Svartalves who were responsible for failing to meet the terms of the bargain.

 

I’d never initiated any dealings with them directly because I knew enough to realized that I wouldn’t be able to afford their help.. They were old school in the biblical sense, and reportedly asked prices that might have made dealing with Mab sound reasonable.

 

There were various stories about them, nominally to outright claiming that they were affiliated with the interests of Summer, Winter, or any number of other supernatural factions for one reason or another. It seemed clear to me that the only loyalty the Svartalves had was ultimately to the Svartalves - they would gladly deal with anyone who would offer them what they considered to be in their best interest. Apparently that included the Goa’uld.

 

Ammit was entirely relaxed with the Svartalf in a way I’d never seen from her before. Her posture was at ease and her normal stance of predatory wariness was gone. She looked calm. She never looked calm. Comfortable, sure, but Ammit had a level of perpetual wariness that never left her even while she slept. In fairness, some of that might have been a byproduct of the natural Unas inclination to sleep with her eyes open and staring out door to her quarters, but one was always left with the impression that she was sizing up everyone around her as a potential threat. It never quite approached Enlil's “booby trap my room with lethal devices while I sleep” level of paranoia, but few could manage that man’s degree of internal paranoia.

 

Ammit seemed - dare I say it - happy, around the Svartalf. They chattered glibly in a language that Lash’s gift of gab apparently didn’t cover, sharing stories involving a great many hand gestures. Given that there was still a horde of Summer hitmen in direct line of sight, this felt somewhat premature. I did not, however, vocalize my discomfort - Ammit had made it abundantly clear that she was in no mood for any backsass from any whippersnapper would be godlings.

 

Muminah, always hyper-aware of my moves and moods, correctly read into my silence and vigilant stare towards the howling masses of Summer. She reached up to place a small hand upon my pauldron, staring adoringly at me as she intoned. “We are safely within the domain of Ammit, my Lord Warden. You need not protect us for the moment.”

 

I chuckled, twisting my neck in the way that activated my armor’s helmet controls. The faceless mask dissolved into the shoulders of my armor - opening my face to the night air of Cairo, still hot and dry without the sun’s rays. “I don’t know how much ‘protection’ I’ve been good for today.”

 

The priestess smiled up at me adoringly. “You have saved the life of the one you are sworn to protect. You have saved the lives of the Tau’ri and your retainers. I know not what standard to which the gods feel compelled to hold themselves, it is not for mortals to know, but any mortal would be thrilled to have managed half as much. We owe you our very lives.”

 

My lip quirked up into a smile, in spite of the melancholy I felt appropriate for the moment. Muminah was the human equivalent to a golden retriever, really. No matter what I did - no matter where I went - I felt confident that she would follow me without hesitation. She would do anything, go anywhere, just to be around me.

 

Her smile was utterly dazzling as she ran her fingers over the symbols along my pauldrons. I fought the urge to swat away her hand, as would normally been my reaction. I felt overwhelming shame as I realized that my default reaction to this woman who had never offered me anything but kindness was to dismiss her. I had been doing it out of discomfort - the relationship Heka had been in with his priestesses could chairtably be described as profane. He’d been raising women from infancy to love him unconditionally so that he could slaughter them without consequence. The adulation of the priestesses had felt dirty to me, tainted by the corrupt nature of that twisted paternal relationship.

 

I’d spent most of my childhood hoping for a place to belong - a family who would love me. When I thought I’d found it, it had turned out that the man who was supposed to have been caring for me was - in actuality - raising me with every intention of breaking my will and turning me into his slave. And while I still had a lifetime worth of mental issues to work out relating to how DuMorne had raised me, Heka made DuMorne look like Fred Rodgers by comparison. Heka had taken children with that same desperation and raised them to believe that the only source of love in their lives was him. That they had no choice except to devote themselves to worshipping him utterly or their lives would be meaningless. There had never been a shortage of orphans and runaways on Nekheb, never a shortage of the poor and abandoned.

 

It felt perverse to indulge in even a remnant of that relationship. It would be a betrayal of every hurt I’d felt as a young man, the sense of betrayal and abandonment I’d felt when someone had used me to their own ends. The Priestesses of Heka had been indoctrinated to follow Hekas words without shame or hesitation, even as they committed profanities of magic. He was in the running for worst parental figure of all time right there with the White King.

 

I didn’t want to go in depth on what the old doctrinal requirements of the clergy had been, what I’d skimmed from the leftover scrolls guiding how to Priestesses were to be raised in order to ensure their loyalty had been stomach churning enough for me to sit down with Bob and just generate up an entirely new book of rules for how the priestesses ought to be raised. I’d mostly just stolen wholesale from what I remembered of how Michael and Charity seemed to be running things combined with largely stolen passages from Ebenezar McCoy’s Elementary Magic, and as much Sesame Street and the Muppets that felt like it could be converted into a practical allegory.

 

After having given them a guide book for personal conduct and raising the younger members of their order that felt less like the Jonestown school of childrearing as informed from the dictated memoirs of Lucifer, I’d gone out of my way not to make choices on their behalf. I’d borrowed a teaching tool from my own mentor, the aforementioned Wizard McCoy - one of the few men I’d ever respected. Whenever they asked me a question regarding something, I grunted, asked them “what should be done,” and then asked “are you sure?” when they replied. Generally speaking, if someone isn’t willing to hold their idea up to scrutiny the it probably isn’t a good idea. If they were totally off the rails I said something, but other than that I mostly just stayed out of it.

 

I’d additionally placed distance between me and my priestesses whenever possible, eschewing physical contact of any kind. I felt a stab of guilt as I ran through the time since I’d taken over Nekheb. Muminah had been with me at nearly every waking moment. I could not think of a single time she’d made contact with a human being simply to touch them except when she was grappling with the other priestesses as part of combat training. I’d felt that loneliness before. Most orphans had. It was an emptiness that one learned to live with because they felt that there was no other option other than to stuffer it.

 

Stars and Stones, I’d become as big of a hypocrite as McCoy… I kept distance between myself and the people who cared about me deeply, maybe even loved me, out of some misguided attempt to create a moral example for how to wield power. But I wasn’t wise. For all the power I’d accrued, largely by accident, I seemed to just be finding new ways to kill things and endanger the people for whom I was responsible. Hell, McCoy was light years less the hypocrite. My choices in the past year had probably killed more people than McCoy had ever dreamed of as the Blackstaff.

 

“Lord Warden?” The High Priestess’ asked, her voiced twinged with worry and apparent regret that she was calling attention to the fact that she’d been touching me for several minutes while I stared out at the Summer assassins.

 

“I’m fine.” I replied, though I sounded anything but. “Muminah… thank you. Thank you for being here. With me. Thank you for choosing to help me.”

 

“Lord Warden.” She replied, her voice a breathless whisper. “You owe me no thanks.”

 

“Yes, I do.” I shook my head. “If you hadn’t summoned me, I would be at the Seelie Court’s mercy. Dead or worse.” I paused, thinking about it. “How did you know to summon me?”

 

“Your book, Warden.” She replied, as though it were obvious, “You taught all of the devoted.”

 

“Huh.” I blinked. Holy crap - I’d included Elemental Magic because it stressed the importance of using power responsibly and because it included a king sized warning against making deals with creatures from the Nevernever. It hadn’t really occurred to that they would actually be able to cast anything. All living things had at least some magic to them, but unless you were actually born with the gift there was a limited degree to which one could actually use it. Creating a magic circle was something that anyone with a pulse could manage. Given the ardent nature of Muminah’s constant fixation upon my every word, only a fool would have managed to miss that the clergy would take every opportunity to put philosophy into practice. “I’m really glad we wrote that book.”

 

“Your book and the Bob’s sequels have been much studied.” Muminah beamed. “We are doing our best to act upon that guidance.”

 

“Sequels?” I asked, dreading the answer. Bob had at least three mischief minded scribes from the Great Library who I’d long suspected were actively aiding the Skull in chaos behind my back. I'd forbidden them from entering the throne room, but they seemed to see it as their solemn duty to sneak around my prohibition by any means possible. Most recently I'd been forced to ban then from the outer corridors so that Bob couldn't pass them messages via Morse code by flashing his eye lights.

 

“Yes Lord Warden. Worry not, words spoken by he alone are treated with suspicion. We know that the Honored Skull acts out in ways that you do not approve of, while remaining your most trusted ally. As a consequence the parables of Emanuelle have become a point of great contention within the clergy. Some allege that they are a test to find those of insufficient chastity. Others suggest that they are displaced urges from your Lordship that we must act upon as you are not able.” Muminah bit her lip in a way that somehow managed to make her look more naked than she usually did. Perhaps it was the slight twinge of lust behind her eyes. “Perhaps hope is a better word.”

 

Ok… that was more than slight.

 

Plate, mail, and leather felt like an insufficient barrier between me and the woman’s woman’s dark skinned hand upon my pauldron. I was uncomfortably aware of both the weight of her hand and that the only thing preventing me from acting upon her apparent desire was my own conscience.

 

Damn if I wasn’t putting that thing through its paces.

 

I swallowed a frog in my throat, trying to parse the religious nightmare of how to decline her transparent offer without accidentally causing a Jihad.

 

To say that I was glad when the Goat-like Summer assassin crossed the threshold and strode towards us was an understatement. Though my gratitude at the distraction only slightly mollified my horror at watching a fairy walk across a threshold as though it weren’t there. “But… but they can’t do that.” I protested what my eyes plainly told me was true. “They can’t just cross a threshold.”

 

“They can, Sir.” The Svartalf security guard replied. “The grounds are accorded neutral territory. The Seelie and Unseelie courts can come and go as they please - provided that they abide by the terms of the Accords.”

 

I relaxed greatly. The Unseelie Accords were not something even mortals chose to mess around with. Even if fairies could break the terms of it, they’d be suicidal to do so. About the only thing that all the nations of the Supernatural world agreed upon was the rules of hospitality and the terms of the Accorded nations. If someone were to break them, they would effectively be declaring war upon all the signatory nations.

 

He wouldn’t break the terms of the bargain. He was a fairy.

 

I looked at the Russian Colonel. “Don’t initiate anything. We’re in neutral territory. Unless we start something he can only talk.”

 

“You have a great deal more faith in treaties than is perhaps advisable, Lord Warden.” The Colonel and his men had their weapons raised, ready to fire upon the fairy.

 

“Empty Night - give it a rest Ivan.” My brother rubbed the bridge of his nose with his palm, cursing them in English before reverting to Russian. “They’re fairies. They physically can’t break their word. They’re biologically incapable.”

 

The Colonel’s reply was cut off as the Svartaf snapped his finger and said something I couldn’t understand. The Russians fell to the ground in an instant as they fell unconscious. Lucky for them, their descent was slowed enough not to harm them by a blue plume of energy. He looked at Ammit and said something in the same warbling language.

 

Ammit snorted, relying in Goa’uld for my benefit. “No - the Warden has a deal with them. Asleep will do for now.”

 

Enlil looked at the Svartalf. “How long will they remain asleep.”

 

“Until the spell is removed.” Replied the Svartalf.

 

Enlil nodded, them kicked the sleeping Colonel in the face hard enough to break his nose. Kincaid smiled broadly, pulled one of the bangles from his pocket, and returned the jewelry to Enlil. The bearded god looked at the jewelry in surprise. He stopped kicking the Colonel in the face and spoke in broken English. “But… you insisted upon this one?”

 

“Friends and family discount.” Kincaid grinned wolfishly. “I'd been wanting to do that all day.”

 

“Not in front of the Fairy.” I hissed, interposing myself between the Russians and the Goa’uld Lord. I looked at the Svartalf in surprise. “Wait - why didn't you stop Enlil from attacking him?”

 

“Senior Management has the right to enact corrective actions on the premises to any non-signatory member.” The Svartalf replied in a bored tone.

 

A wicked, wicked realization occured to me. “Ammit - why are you considered ‘Management’ here?”

 

“We’re standing atop the Grand Necropolis Anubi from before the Folly. It is holy ground for all pantheons.” Ammit’s teeth split into a cruel grin. “The Svartalves were hired to protect it from those who would defile it after we left, preventing the blood born from feasting upon our dead. All Goa’uld of Apep’s bloodlines are welcome here - “ she looked to Enlil “ - even the disowned pantheons.”

 

“Dagon is hardly germain to our current situation.” Enlil spat back, his eyes flashing with anger at the jab.

 

“Were at the Necropolis. I can’t imagine anyone more relevant to our current situation.” Ammit shrugged.

 

“So we’re on freaking holy ground with Svartalf backup on accorded territory where I'm considered family?” I shook my head. Spiritual beings generally had the run of places they “belonged,” family homes, crypts and the like. “That makes no sense, why did the threshold stop me?”

 

“There are several millennia of additional wards, sir.” The Svartalf shrugged. “We didn't anticipate one of you becoming semi-corporeal. Seth is the only senior manager to visit in five hundred years. He insisted on the additional provisions.”

 

“There is seriously a Goa’uld named Seth?” I pinched the bride of my nose. “I got my ass kicked because some prick named Seth?”

 

“Setesh has been a laughing stock for centuries.” Ammit sighed. “Drip drop drip.”

 

While the context of the joke was lost on me, apparently that was hilarious judging by both Muminah and Enlil’s reactions. No accounting for taste.

 

I clapped my hands together and started walking towards the Fairy. Ammit laughed, “Warden, what are you doing?”

 

“I would have thought that was obvious, Ammit. There is a murderous, powerful fairly who wants me dead coming to talk in a place he can’t actually do anything about what I say.” I grinned. “I'm going to go be vague and insouciant.”


	25. Chapter 25

I was very willing to let the Svartalf walk alongside me as I approached the fairy. Ammit seemed convinced that the Svartalf could hold his own, and I’d learned to trust her judgement when it came to the application of violence.

 

That being said, even though I knew it was insane to think it, it felt absurd to take that degree of precaution in interacting with something so apparently fragile. Ancient didn’t even begin to describe the goat-like warrior. Fairies, as a rule, aged much better than their mortal counterparts. This guy looked like a stiff breeze might take him out. For something that had seemed so horrifying only moments ago he just seemed sort of tiny once I wasn’t contending with the agony of a spear the length of a city bus bisecting my torso.

 

Even Thomas towered over the little man. Don’t get me wrong, Thomas is an adonis of superhuman perfection but he’s only slightly above average height. He just looks taller because he doesn’t ever slouch. Vampire freaking posture - there are some benefits that don’t make the brochures.

 

Then again I should say he “would have” towered over the man if he hadn’t quicky assisted Kincaid in dragging the unconscious Russians back towards the hotel. Apparently Thomas had the good sense to not be around Summer’s heavy hitters, just in case they might be able to see through his disguise. It was for the best, really. If they were even halfway competent they’d at least recognize him as White Court.

 

I wasn’t even remotely surprised when Enlil followed them into the hotel. Enlil’s survival instincts were second to none. That he dragged Muminah away from potential danger was equally indicative of his good sense. I suppose, it spoke volumes to either my insanity or Ammits loyalty that she walked with me to meet the fairy. She wore the deeply predatory grin that I knew meant she was holding back laughter at my expense. Sure, Ammit was a murderous, cannibalistic, violent, lunatic, but I really couldn’t hope for a better companion for doing something blisteringly foolish… at least since Murphy had stopped being in my life.

 

I snorted, briefly imagining what would happen if I ever managed to get Murphy and Ammit in the same room. Hell’s bells - I don’t know if I could survive being that wrong from that many angles at once. They’d either end up killing each other or becoming the best of friends. I didn’t know which was scarier.

 

I didn’t realize that I’d started giggling till Ammit asked the question. “Warden? Something on your mind?”

 

“Just thinking what would happen if you ever met a friend of mine.” I replied honestly.

 

“Warden, I’ve met the decapitated sum total of your past relationships. And he has no choice.” Ammit rolled her eyes. “You haven’t even called your current stable of sublords to swear fealty to you. I’ll worry about meeting your social circle when we can’t all comfortably fit into a Transport Ship.”

 

I blinked. “I have sublords?”

 

“Technically you currently have a conglomeration of terrified Goa’uld waiting for their inevitable exile or execution.” Ammit shrugged. “Given how many of them either didn’t come to aid me while I was keeping the gate open or didn’t offer Enlil safe passage while he was fleeing Ninlil neither of us have been in a particular hurry to encourage you securing their pledges of loyalty. It never felt like a priority really. It's not as though any of them are mad enough to try to betray you while you can toss them to the mercy of Sun and Snow with a whisper.”

 

“I’m not exactly overwhelmed by the benefit of being allied with either court at the moment.” I stopped, scowling at the fairy as it hobbled forward. It moved with the slow deliberation of extreme age, though only a fool would miss the supine grace of the man’s movement. It was the movement of an old warrior, deliberate and more than capable of inflicting horrific violence.

 

“Well, you are the one who bragged about being responsible for the death of the Summer Lady.” Ammit shrugged. “That isn’t precisely the way to keep your allies.”

 

“Would you have preferred that we all die?” The goat man stopped a good three yards from us, silently standing. He seemed to be waiting for us to come to him.

 

Screw that. I wasn’t on his time. I stopped walking, and held up my arm so that Ammit would do the same. Ammit idly looked from the arm to me and back, clearly considering ripping it off and tossing it into the bushes for having given her a command.

 

Blessedly she didn’t maim me, choosing instead to lean down and say, “What I would prefer is for you to exercise something resembling self preservation when you interact with women, mortal or otherwise,” before punching my shoulder hard enough for me to feel it throguh the armor.

 

I rubbed my shoulder, idly noting that apparently my armor was still entirely intact in spite of how many times I’d been butchered. The magic that reformed me seemed to extend to my clothing as well. Odd - I’d have expected that something as magically intensive as restoring an artefact should have required active effort.

 

Though, I suppose I might have expected reforming my body to have required the same. Live and learn, I guess.

 

The four of us stood there an extremely awkward silence as he glared at me with the horde of fairy killers in the background. Their armies massed around the threshold, tiny beasts and beautiful men at the feet of the titanic plague beasts. Ok, I’ll admit it - I was a little bit proud that I’d managed to get past all that without dying.

 

The best course of action would have been to be gracious in victory. But the truth was that both Harry Dresden and the mantle of the Warden were in agreement that we weren’t going to give this goat bastard even an inch.

 

So, of course, I insulted him. It wasn’t bright, but damn it felt good.

 

“Hey there Billy Boy. What brings you to my place?” I grinned at the caprine fariy, enjoying his impotent glare of unadulterated malevolence. He hated me and wasn’t even bothering with the pretense of civility that he’d presented to me when he’d been in control only moments before. Insulting him might not have been the most practical course of action under the circumstances, but I screw it the guy had just tried to kill me - his feelings weren't really a priority for me.

 

The man’s hackles bristled, but he stayed deathly silent and stared at me with those alien looking eyes.

 

I waggled my eyebrows insultingly, looking at Ammit in mock shock. “Crossing the threshold doesn’t mute goats does it? If so we really must take that up with the Manager when we meet them.”

 

The Svartalf’s eyes narrowed. I raised a hand apologetically, waving off my previous statement. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have insulted your spell work. It was more than sufficient to prevent my own entry. I meant no offense to your competence.”

 

The Svartalf said nothing, but his dead eyes seemed to lose their annoyance. Or at least I thought they did - human emotion is hard to attribute to things that aren’t human.

 

I looked back at the goat-man, smiling wickedly. “You see - it's not that hard to apologize when you’ve made a mistake. I tell you what, you apologize and agree not to keep trying to kidnap, maim, enslave or kill me and I’ll promise not to kill you for having tried and failed.” I let the mantle into me, expanding my grin to preternaturally manic proportions and bleeding a bit of red lightning out of the fathomless voids of my eyes. “Given how utter your failure was.”

 

Yes, I do know how cartoonish that sounds, but this guy thought I was from the System Lord school of diplomacy. If I negotiated from a more reasonable starting point it would be interpreted as an obvious trap and I really didn’t want to have to fight him more. Winters heavy hitters were generally bastards. Summer’s guys tended to be alright, at least by fairy standards. Sure, they’d kill you dead but they’d be polite about it.

 

When the man finally replied to me, it became apparent that his silence hadn’t been a strategy. He’d been just to generally blinded by rage to speak. “I want you to tell me why. Why hast thou done this monstrous thing? Why come to this world knowing that we would be able to hunt you with greater ease than anywhere else in the universe. I want to know why? I will still have that answered so that I might one day kill you when my lady tires of her vengeance.”

 

I groaned. “Dude - I’ve already told you the truth. Aurora’s bonkers, nutzo, crazypants, certifiably insane. She stole the Summer Knight’s mantle and is planning on using that power to give the power to winter and destroy the world.”

 

“More lies.” The fairy’s rage roiled as spittle frothed in his jowls. “The Summer Lady could no more betray her nature than any of us. She is Sidhe.”

 

“The warden is not lying.” Ammit replied, her voice reverberating with the same quality that it had held when first she’d seen into the truth of my words. I looked at her, wincing at the glowing blood drippping down her face as her eyes shone brightly. “I swear this to you upon the vengance that I am owed - lest I be forced to give up the three who must die. The Warden speaks true.”

 

The fairy’s head rocked back as though he’d been slapped, twisting his neck to look at her so fast that I thought he might be in danger of whiplash. He looked as though he might be about to accuse her of similar deception, his lips curling back around caprine teeth. And then, almost suddenly as his rage had arisen, he was a dangerous, deadly calm.

 

“It was thee who told the Winter Queen what thy were going to do precisely so that she would tell us what thee had done. You wanted her to order her most dangerous warriors to follow and to ban mine own most dangerous warriors from returning to the great battle unless we brought thee with us.” He hissed through his teeth, eyes widening in apparent horror. “None of this was an accident - nor was thy presence here, in this place where the Terms were negotiated.”

 

Ammit groaned. “Blood of Apep - the Taint of the Other. She is cursed with the Taint of that which must never be spoken.”

 

“I don’t know how or why she has gone insane - only that she has.” I replied.

 

“I will never forgive you for this, Warden. For this monstrous thing that thou hast chosen. I likely will hate thee forever.” The Sidhe growled spitefully, his ears twitching back and forth. He looked twice as old as when he’d first chosen to speak. “But I understand. I will do what I can to ensure that mine Queen deals with thee mercifully.”

 

“She’s never going to stop hunting me, is she?” I asked. The Queens of Summer and winter were immortal and capable of accomplishing basically anything eventually. If she’d declared that I would be at her mercy, I would eventually be at it. “And she’d going to hurt the people I care about until she does?”

 

“Yes.” The fairy replied, giving the first simple, direct, and deliberate answer I’d ever gotten from one of them without forcing it from them. It meant that it was such an obvious, immutable fact that it didn’t merit discussion. “For now, mine Queen is content to hunt thee but the longer this fracas is drawn this out the more it becomes an issue of state. Vengeance is swift, but a threat to sovereignty is to be dealt with overwhelming force. Thine family, children, lands, and even thine subjects might one day meet with the Summer Queen’s wroth.”

 

I vividly remembered the Winter Queen destroying entire fleets of ships with a gesture. I wasn’t going to be able to run from this. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and spoke the second most dangerous phrase I knew. “I wish to make a bargain.”

 

“For thy life?” The fairy laughed sadly.

 

“For my surrender.” I replied.

 

My plan was insane, but I’d given up on smart the moment I’d internally done an inventory of which targets would make the most sense for the Summer Queen to take her vengeance upon if she’d failed to strike me directly. I’d taken her child, so the obvious “balancing” of those scales would be for her to take mine. I had adopted so many kids that it was honestly unfeasible that one of them wouldn’t be somewhere that Summer could get to them eventually. In everything but blood I’d become the father to the War Orphans of Nekheb. I would protect my children, that was what a good father was supposed to do.

 

“Warden!” Ammit snarled. “Have you gone insane?”

 

“Probably.” I had a plan in mind. It was an insane plan that was probably going to doom me to an eternity of agony, but it was something. “I will agree to turn myself in to you - and only you - disarm myself, and come with you to meet with the Summer Queen. In exchange for agreeing that neither I nor any of my retainers will come to any harm, I will agree to become a prisoner of Summer until she and I have reached an agreement for my surrender.”

 

“She well might take an eternity to accept your terms.” Ammit snarled. “She does not need to touch you to break you, Warden!”

 

“Mine Queen did authorize me to take you prisoner… it would be within my purview to agree to this.” The fairy hesitated before continuing. “But the Eater of Sin is correct. One need not touch you to destroy what you are.”

 

“She’ll agree to my terms.” I was more and more convinced of it the more I considered them.

 

Ammit’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know that I don’t, Warden?”

 

“Enough.” I smiled enigmatically, looking back at the Fairy. “I will agree to come with you to meet the summer queen under the terms previously spoken, but I will not do it immediately. There is a task I must complete first. I praythee, permit me safe passage to complete this task and I will come with thee to the heart of Summer to meet with your good Queen.”

 

“And what might that Task be?” Inquired the fairy.

 

“I’m going to go to Buyan and kill Koschei.” I replied honestly. “I need Summer to stop trying to kill or capture me till I’ve accomplished that.”

 

The fairy’s alien eyes regarded me in befuddlement. “Wouldst thou not prefer to just surrender thyself to mine Queen? It seems the less painful option.”

 

“He has the Archive. She is under my protection. I will not allow him to keep her.” It was the truth, and I was reasonably certain that Summer wouldn’t want the geriatric terror to have Ivy any more than I did.

 

“Ah.” The fairy replied, mulling it over. “I will agree to thine terms, with a single condition added.”

 

“Name it.” I replied.

 

“Thou will grant Summer the permission to enter anywhere in thy dominion if thy breaketh the terms of this agreement or stop hunting Koschei for any reason other than his death or thine own. If thee do not willingly surrender thyself to me when thine task is done there will be no corner of thine own dominion where we cannot hunt thee. Our prey will be at the mercy of those who hate thee until such time as we can find thee to take mine Queen’s vengeance.” The caprine fairy held out his paw. “Agree to this and I will hold up both the word and intended spirit of our pact. I swear this on the Honor of Summer with the Svartalf as the witness to our terms.”

 

“Done.” I grabbed the fairy’s hand before Ammit had a chance to protest. “I swear that I will keep my word and turn myself in to you if I am still alive to do so.”

 

“Warden!” Ammits screech of rage wasn’t language as much a pure atavistic screech of desperate confusion. “You can’t!”

 

“Of course I can, I’m the God of Madness.” I felt the shift of power as the bargain was made, letting go of the fairy’s hand. “And who knows? I could get lucky and die when we go to Buyan.”

 

“That is not a plan!” Ammit pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as I watched the army of Summer fairies disappear into a sudden gust of hot desert air, fading away like the shifting sands.

 

“Trust me Ammit - we were’t going to even get out of Cairo with Summer’s best at our throats.” I shrugged. “I’ll sort this out with the Queen when we’re done.”

 

“How? What could you possibly offer you that will protect you from her wrath?” Ammit snarled.

 

“Nothing.” I agreed. “I probably can’t save me, but I’m pretty sure I can save the rest of you.”

 

Ammit’s expression went from rage to abject horror. “Warden?”

 

“Ammit, doing the right thing isn’t about doing the right thing for me specifically. I need to do what is going to save the lives of the people I care about.” I smiled sadly. “I’ve pretty much been living on borrowed time since Sokar’s palace.

 

The goddess was silent for a long time before she spoke. “I think that Enlil and I might have managed to mold you into a worthy ruler if we’d had the time.”

 

“Funny thing, time.” I chuckled. “It might be infinite but there never quite seems to be enough of it.”

 

“Sir, Ma’am.” The Svartalf interjected, holding a finger up to the side of its head as though it were touching an invisible earpiece. “The Manager is still waiting.”

 

“Of course.” Ammit sighed. “Warden, are we good to go or do you have another appointment to doom yourself today that I don’t know about?”

 

“Not that I know of,” I followed the goddess as she strode towards the hotel, “But that’s never helped me before.”


	26. Chapter 26

I wasn’t sure if it was Ammit or me who made the small child cry when we entered the hotel lobby, but the kid’s mother all but flew across the lobby to drag her away from us as she froze in horror - sobbing. In retrospect, an armor-plated, blood-covered specter with hair and eyes made from shadows shimmering in starlight walking next to a bipedal crocodile weren’t exactly the clientele of an upscale hotel.

 

The crying child’s mother violently yanked her kid from the front door, practically fleeing to the elevator.

 

“Yeah.” I groaned, feeling the judging stares of the hotel guests. “That feels about right.”

 

I haven’t historically done well with upscale hotels. I’ve never been what anyone would consider rich, so the only reason I’ve really had to be inside of them is while I’m on the job. Generally speaking, this means that I’m heading somewhere a legitimate guest of that hotel really doesn’t want me to be… and as a consequence hotel security doesn’t want me to be either. Even when that isn’t the case, I’m not used to being welcome.

 

Mortal and immortal alike, if you’ve got a lot you don’t like having to spend a lot of time around someone who “doesn’t belong.” The huge guy covered in scars, wearing a leather duster and holding a wizard’s staff? That fits comfortably in the category of “people who don’t belong at the Drake for afternoon Tea.” It was part of why I paid for an office back when I’d been starting out and barely able to afford it, it disinclined clients from asking me to meet them places even less agreeable to my wallet.

 

My experience at the Marriott was not the greeting to which I’d become accustomed. On entering the front door we were veritably assaulted by a small army of hotel employees that could have given Amun a run for his money when it came to infuriating degrees of helpfulness. There was an honest to goodness lineup of maids and bellhops there to greet us, standing at attention like an honor guard. The doormen actually saluted me as I walked into the lobby.

 

They had the same rigidity to them that the guard we’d left behind at the perimeter, doubtless more Svartalves cloaking themselves in the guise of human beings. I could tell that this was categorically not the standard greeting for important guests to this hotel, there were some baffled looking hotel employees discussing the matter of our arrival at the hotel bar - making no effort to hide how strange they found this to be. It was at about this time that I realized that this was a fully functioning hotel, full of entirely mortal and equally baffled tourists just here to see the wonders of Egypt.

 

And now, being greeted like Royalty by the hotel staff, were a number of obvious soldiers, space Egyptians, and a giant crocodile person. A baffling sight, to say the least, though I’m reasonably certain that it was Muminah who was attracting the most unwelcome attention at the moment. Stars and stones, I’d brought a nudist to a country populated by conservative Muslims. I could have brought an entire Battalion of Unas and I wasn’t sure that I would get as much pearl clutching horror as the Priestess’ barely covered bottom was likely to engender.

 

Not that anyone was saying anything about it. Well… not any more, I should say. I was reasonably certain that the dazed looking man with a red and white checkered head scarf had made the mistake of entering Mumina’s personal space without her permission. The shade of red dripping down her fingers seemed to match the shade dripping from his broken nose as he hobbled back to the bar.

 

One did not touch a woman of the clergy of Nekheb without her permission, else they suffered her extreme displeasure. That, at least, I had insisted upon the clergy keeping in their training. Even Heka had a couple of ideas worth keeping.

 

Muminah, Kincaid, and Enlil were in the process of propping the Russians in a small enclave of chairs next to the check-in desk as Kincaid spoke with a short woman with skin that was incongruously pale for the desert climate. She moved a lock of shockingly blonde hair away from her face as she assessed me with piercing eyes the color of frozen raspberries.

 

Enlil moved up to her and took her hand in both of his, kneeling and kissing her knuckles as he bowed his head in deference. He did not move until she’d placed her other hand upon his head, shifting back in a still kneeling position of deference.

 

Ammit, by contrast, grabbed the woman into a bear hug - snarling with glee. She picked her up and twirled the blonde woman about, making the waif of a woman giggle with glee as she was tossed into the air. Ammit caught her and nuzzled the woman with her scaly chin, making a noise that almost sounded like purring.

 

“I have missed you too, old friend.” The blond woman replied, caressing her jaw with a pale hand. “It has been too long.”

 

“This world does not welcome me as once it did.” Ammit purred, letting go of the woman. She did so slowly, her fingers lingering on the woman’s arm as they parted. “And its charms have been lost on me since my time in Buyan.”

 

“You, uh, know each other Ammit?” I inquired politely.

 

“Syn was one of the Jötunn who stood with their cousins when all else fell.” Ammit grinned. “It was she, as she alone, who I trusted to protect the Gates to the Necropolis in my absence.”

 

“I meant she seems like…. uh, more than a friend.” I eyed the hand still lingering on Syn’s arm.

 

“So help me Warden, if you make so much as one “Eater of Sin” joke I will disembowel you.” Ammit’s eyes flashed.

 

“I’m not judging.” Open mouth, insert foot. “It jus, you know.”

 

“Syn is a trusted friend.” Ammit replied firmly. “Her world is good.”

 

“Yes - it is.” The woman’s red eyes flicked to each of us in turn, assessing us with a razor like focus. Her gaze lingered upon Kincaid before she continued. “I presume that I have you to thank for the current Chaos?”

 

“Him mostly.” Ammit slapped my shoulder. “The good Lord Warden seems happiest when things are on fire.”

 

I staggered slightly at the weight of Ammit’s meaty claw. She wasn’t particularly good at gentle when she got conversational. “I don’t like setting things on fire, I just seem to need to set things on fire often.”

 

“I would prefer that you curtailed such behavior within the confines of these premises. While we are holding them in trust as part of the Terms, they are considered accorded neutral territory and we are inclined to enforce that neutrality.” She waved vaguely in the direction of the man bleeding into his scotch. “With some reasonable degree of latitude for non-signatories and the chattel of Senior Management… of course.”

 

Kincaid snorted. “Lady, we both know the only reason your security didn’t break the Prince’s nose was that I didn’t get to the prince first.”

 

“When I need to hear barking I will address you, hound.” The woman’s voice was pure venom. “Do not think that I have forgotten what you are, or who you’ve killed.”

 

“Pleasure as always Lady Syn.” Kincaid sighed, looking at the mortals on all sides of us. “But I feel like you’ve got bigger problems than our old spats. What happens when all these people start talking about what they’ve seen and what we’ve done.”

 

Syn looked at the Mercenary in momentary incredulity. “Hellhound… tomorrow the only thing they will remember is that armed guards were brought in to protect the guests from the riots in town that happened after the Nuclear event in Russia. This place is protected by the collective enchantments of Svartalfheim, Asgard, and the Ogdoad, if it even takes that long.”

 

She waved at the Saudi Prince as his expression went from one of anger to one of confusion. He looked down at the bloody rag in his hand, utterly baffled as to how he’d been harmed. Mind altering magic. My heart stopped, “You’re hurting those people. Mind magic on that scale can’t be done without serious consequences.”

 

“Not by mortal magic or the Goa’uld, but the Asgard have long ago mastered the arts of the mind.” The woman replied firmly. “We can excise memories, add them, or move memories into new flesh without particular difficulty. It was instrumental in imposing the terms, if you’ll recall.”

 

She paused, as though realizing what she’d said. “Though I suppose you wouldn’t, what with that being the entire point of removing them.”

 

That was new. I’d met the Asgard before. Thor had allowed me to surrender to the SGC after my il-fated run through the realm of Dragons. But when I’d met him he’d been something straight out of an episode of the X-Files. Syn was inhuman, but no more so than any of the Sidhe. A skin mask then - it had to be.

 

Inhuman creatures often adopted human masks to help them blend into the mortal societies they lived in. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In legends the Svartalves were closely connected to the Asgard, it stood to reason that they were distant cousins or something. I’d have to ask Bob about it when I got back.

 

“Lady Syn.” I kneeled as Enlil had, doing my best to turn on the charm. “I apologize for our presumption of dropping by unannounced and for questioning your courtesy. We have had a long day and are tired. Thank you for taking us as guests in this place.”

 

Syn crooked her brow, holding out her hand to me as she had done to Enlil. I kissed it in imitation of how he had done. She looked at Ammit, “You’ve been working on these two, I see.”

 

“They’re learning.” Ammit replied. “They might even be worth a damn if they live through the assault on Buyan.”

 

“Not well enough to save themselves from their own mortal enemies, it would seem.” She pointed to my brother. “Not when they bring one of the Godsbane with them.”

 

“Hey, I’m not here to cause any problems.” Thomas held up his hands in an effort to seem harmless. Not a very effective one judging by the Asgardian’s expression.

 

“The blood of an Incubus cannot be trusted. Not here - not knowing what I know it can be used to accomplish.” Syn glared daggers at Kincaid. “And what others might use its mortal sacrifice to accomplish.”

 

“Kincaid.” I spoke the name like a vile oath. “The potion you used in me, the sedative. How did you make it?”

 

Kincaid said nothing, his face an impassive mask as my mind filled in the worst case possible scenario. “Because it’s sounding a hell of a lot like she’s saying that you killed a White Court vampire in a blood ritual to make that potion.”

 

Kincaid still said nothing, though his hand twitched - not quite reaching for a weapon.

 

“It sounds a hell of a lot like you were planning on doing the same to Thomas if you ran out of the potion.” Even disregarding the whole “he planned to kill my brother” aspect to this, I didn’t dare to think what a potion capable of doing that do me might manage when they had actual blood-of-my-blood mixed into it.

 

“No - the Incubus was not intended for that purpose. Not as a primary course of action, but the Archive never does anything without five different back-up plans in place. I would be surprised if that hadn’t worked its way at least partially into her thinking.” Kincaid replied as Thomas glared daggers at him. “But the White Court are too useful to do that to the more productive members of their order. Skavis and Mavora generally don’t draw as much attention when they go missing. A living White Court Vampire is… as a rule, potent in their ability to bend and break the ancient Pantheon.”

 

He sighed in apparent disappointment. “Not that it seems Thomas to have accomplished anything resembling that since he’s been here.”

 

“Don’t blame me.” Thomas groused. “You’re the one who chose to try to use an incubus against someone who is protected by true love. I didn’t even know that the old gods could be in love.”

 

I could have killed my brother for saying that in front of Muminnah. Her eyes were bulging with an impossible myriad of questions that I was dreading. She remained silent, but I knew all too well that if I didn’t figure out some way of explaining Susan to the priestesses they’d create their own version of “who” I loved.

 

“Kill each other once the Archive is safe.” Ammit cut in, waylaying the fight she could see incoming. “ I don’t have time for children to squabble. Syn, we need to get to the ship I left behind.”

 

“You know that the White Council won’t allow entry.” Syn shook her head. “Their interpretation of the Terms differs drastically from our own. I will not help you violate their sovereignty.“

 

“But you can allow entry into the Grand Necropolis Anubi.” Enlil insisted. “To pay our respects of course.”

 

“And that you might exit the Necropolis through one of the other exits is just coincidence, I assume?” The Goddess replied acerbically.

 

“I hadn’t considered that far in advance, and the great necropolis is quite difficult to traverse.” The Akkadian god replied demurely, though a wolfish glint shone in his eye. “That Mortals failed to understand the Terms of the gods is hardly the fault of the gods. Wouldn’t you agree?”

 

“If your warriors had been half so dangerous as your tongue you might have survived the fury of your wife, Enlil.” The pale goddess smiled at him. “But, yes, I can not deny you access to the burial place of your people.”

 

She held up a finger, “Nor, however, can I allow you access to the Necropolis without a chaperone. There are still echoes of the past within it, and we dare not allow them to escape in your flesh.”

 

“I presided over the Necropolis Anubi until the bitter end.” Ammit’s teeth gnashed as she pointed an angry talon into the tiny goddess chest, pressing it into the silk fabric of her shirt. “Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do in my domain or to demand chaperones in a place that you may not walk without our permission.”

 

“Actually, the Jötunn are - when last I looked - entirely welcome within the Necropolis, be they invited or not.” I jumped in surprise as a narrow man of average height appeared from a pillar of blue and white light, stroking a calico mess of hair on his chin that could only have been called a “beard” in the loosest possible interpretation of the world. The man was built all wrong, he looked less like a person and more like what would happen if a child’s drawing of a man came to life. His eyes were mismatched and his fingers longer than I would ever have expected on a mortal man. He was wearing something that looked like a military uniform, only made out of haphazard swatches of different types of fabric.

 

Ammit sniffed the air cautiously before asking, “Loki?”

 

I whistled, long and low. I’d heard of Loki - who hadn’t? He was a god of pranks and mischief who’d, at least according to the legends, gone too far and been tortured by Odin for eternity as a consequence of that. He was substantially less “captive” than the legends would suggest.

 

“In a manner of speaking.” The man shrugged. “I am not what once I was, and am not what I will one day be. But yes, I am he who spawned the Jörmungandr.”

 

“But - but you died at the battle of Djer.” Ammit spoke in a voice of horrified quiet. “How - Odin?”

 

“He doesn’t like to let go, I’m afraid.” The man sighed. “Even as a shade of what once I was, I am still me.”

 

“I missed you.” The goddess hugged the tiny man, giggling as he shimmered out of her grip, appearing next to Muminah to whisper into the priestess’ ear. The priestess giggled at what he’d said, slapping his arm playfully.

 

“She is at least ten millennia too young for you, Loki.” Enlil laughed, sincere warmth in his voice. “Not that a difference in age or even species has ever stopped you before.”

 

“Charmed though I am to reminisce over times lost, I would suggest that we move with purpose.” The trickster god waved to the elevators. “Time is the weapon of your enemy, best not to arm him more than he already is.”

 

As he waved his hand a red gem above the elevator sprung to life. A wide beam of red scanned across the room from left to right, disapparating my entire cadre of companions into thin air. It was bizarre, as the light swiped over us I could see reality shifting us to a different geography entirely. We’d gone from an upscale hotel to a subterranean city of pyramids and ancient buildings, illuminated by the glow of an artificial sun.

 

“Much better” Loki sighed, basking in the light of the artificial sun briefly before turning to me. “Now, I believe that you are the one who has managed to replicate the stupidity that nearly ended reality? Or is are there two of you insane enough to conduct the ritual of Necromantic Ascension?”

 

“Yeah, he’s the moron.” Ammit chuckled.

 

“I was asking him.” Loki cut her off. “Are you he?”

 

“I am.” There didn’t seem any point in lying.

 

“Then it is good that we have this opportunity to talk. I am in a unique position to help you, Lord Warden.” The man smiled, flashing evenly spaced teeth that were a bit too even to feel natural.

 

“And what is the price of this help?” I scoffed, I wasn’t about to make a deal with a famous Trickster - regardless of his prior relationship with Ammit and Enlil.

 

“I’m rather hoping you’ll avoid dooming the universe. It is in my best interest, given that I’m a current resident.” Loki replied dryly, gesturing to Ammit and Enlil. “And given that neither of them is actually able to explain why or how that came to be due to the Terms, assuming they even remember a tenth of what is relevant, they’re useless for preventing that.”

 

“But you can just tell me?” I inquired.

 

“Not everything.” Loki replied. “I wasn’t present for everything you need to know. I’d imagine that only the Ogdoad could answer that. But I do know the true folly of Thoth, not just the prelude to the Folly.”

 

“We dare not speak the words!” Enlil hissed. “Or they might be heard.”

 

“Not within the Necropolis.” Loki dismissed the suggestion. “Within the Necropolis not even the servants of the White God can see what is done by our kind, much less the Enemy.”

 

He looked at me. “So, Warden. Do you want to know? Do you want to know the secret that felled the Endless Pantheon?”

 

I swallowed nervously, this was the sort of information that Mab might well kill me for having. It was the sort of information that could destroy me. Still - It was always better to know than not to know. An uninformed choice was no choice at all.

 

I looked at the Trickster god, avoiding direct contact with his eyes as I said. “Tell me about the Folly of Thoth.”


	27. Chapter 27

Loki addressed Ammit, his voice succinct as he said, “I presume that your memories of the Necropolis will be sufficient to guide your companions to the Scales?”

 

Ammit arched a scaly brow ridge. “You’re kidding me, right?”

 

“Shall I take that as a yes?” Loki replied.

 

“Filial piety will only take you so far, old man.” Ammit snorted in amusement. “The day I can’t navigate the halls of this place will come long after the Great End.”

 

“Then we will wait for you at the Scales.” Loki replied, snapping his fingers and whisking us away in beam of light. For the second time that day I found myself transported across time and space, to a palatial room that reminded me of Nekheb to a disturbing degree. I’d have been willing to bet anything that Heka had created his throne room in imitation of this place.

 

Loki’s body shimmered, rippling as it reduced down to a tiny waif of a man with an oversized head. He seemed puny, too slight to even move under his own power, let alone to command the vast powers I knew were at his control. He hobbled forward, spindly legs seeming as though they might break at any second. “Come on then Dresden. We have a lot to talk about.”

 

I sputtered in confusion. “What did you just call me?”

 

“Dresden - it’s your name isn’t it? I could call you “Harry” if you’d prefer, but I feel that we don’t quite know each other well enough to be getting informal.” The little man sat down on the stairs leading up to the palatial chamber’s entrance, dangling them down as he watched the silent cityscape of the necropolis. He pulled out a glowing stone from god alone knew where, tossing it into the thin air where it hovered magnifying a swirling corona of air to display my compatriots as they made the long way to the pyramid.

 

“I am the Lord Warden - ” I replied only for the little man to cut over me.

 

“Dre’su’den the Ha’ri, yes - I know. It’s not even a particularly clever manipulation of your real name.” The tiny norse god replied, tapping the shimmering air to display odd runes and icons as his stone examined the Russians as they woke, standing groggily as Kincaid, Thomas, and Muminah helped them to their feet. The tiny line of his mouth quirked up into a smile. “I do appreciate a certain degree of deviousness, Dresden, but if you try to lie to me I will leave without telling you what you wish to know.”

 

“Who told you?” I sighed. “The Winter Queen? The Leanansidhe?”

 

“The computer attached to the sensors on my Asgard Battleship.” The tiny creature replied glibly. “There was enough of you left in what you’ve become from your unascended body to run a DNA test against your past self. I’ve been monitoring the Russian Stargate since they took it from the bottom of the sea.”

 

“Excuse me?” I replied, flabbergasted that my ruse had been undone by an ancient Norse god’s understanding of modern forensics.

 

“You’ve only undergone the ritual of Necromantic Ascension once, you’re just slightly more than what you used to be.” Loki dismissed the rune, disappearing it with another burst of brilliant energy. “I used my existing file for your genetic profile and matched you to your past self.”

 

“You have my DNA on file?”

 

“I keep track of Wizards, yes.” The Norse godling kicked his little legs back and forth, seemingly enjoying cool breeze flowing through the vast cavern. “Yours and any other Wizard of interest. It is a matter of academic curiosity.”

 

“I am more than just a curiosity.” My eyes flashed unconsciously with red lightning, stormy pits smoldering at the indignity of being at this beings mercy. Loki was not a creature I wanted knowing my secrets.

 

“Certainly not an academic one, judging by your history of studies.” The creature warbled, patting the open patch stairs next to him. “Sit, please. I would speak with you. One God of Mischief to another.”

 

“I’m not a god of Mischief, Chaos, or anything else - I’m just me.” I replied, sitting down next to the Asgardian. I rolled my staff between my gauntleted hands, running my armored fingers across the runes.

 

“As was I and as were countless other pantheons that have since slipped into time immemorial.” The creature made a trilling noise that might have been laughter. “We don’t create our own roles in this life, Dresden. They are created for us as we are forced to use our abilities. I would much rather be remembered for being the god of Fatherhood than Treachery, but I’ll wager you knew of the venom dripped into my eyes long before you knew that I was more than a god of Chaos.”

 

“Rumors of your imprisonment appear to have been greatly exaggerated.” I looked at the creature, catching an unconscious wince of pain upon his face.

 

“They have not.” The man replied coldly. “I - well one of what you would consider to be “me,” is trapped in a perpetual hell of agony. Another sits next to you, still others labor elsewhere.”

 

“There is more than one Loki?”

 

“Is there not more than one Harry?” The trickster’s smile seemed more pained than it had a moment ago.

 

“Fair point.” I conceded, giving the matter some thought. “So - you traveled in time as well?”

 

“Yes, no, and both.” The creature’s smile returned to a near giddy glee. “If you survive long enough you’ll begin to understand.”

 

“You aren’t what I imagined you’d be like.” I scratched my head, shaking shards of broken glass and debris from my hair.

 

“No, I’m much more handsome.” The creature replied glibly. “That’s why you like me Harry. I’m just so pretty.”

 

I burst into laughter that the absurdity of it all. Here I was, sitting in a forgotten city with a Norse god discussing how pretty he was. I laughed until it hurt, letting manic tears run down my face. Hell’s bells, it just felt good to be with someone who just treated me as Harry Dresden.

 

A little hand rested on my shoulder, too slight for me to feel the pressure through my armor though infinite in how comforting it felt. “It gets easier, Dresden. The pain, the responsibility, and even the loneliness.”

 

“What do you want?” I croaked through my mirth and sorrow, wiping the tears clumsily off my face with my gauntlet fingers.

 

“I want what every father wants, Dresden. I want my children to stop hurting themselves. I want their sins to be forgiven. I want for them to prosper as they once did, before they committed all this madness.” The little man’s voice sounded nearly as choked up as my own. “I want the blood-children of Jörmungandr to be redeemed.”

 

“The Goa’uld… you’re… you’re talking about the Goa’uld.” I looked at the waifish little creature in befuddlement. “You’re the progenitor of the entire species?”

 

“I am - or was - the father of the great Wyrm Jörmungandr. Thor took offense to my child, and wounded him grievously. Jörmungandr’s blood enveloped the word from which the Jörmungandrsons evolved, shaping them into what you now know as Unas and Goa’uld.”

 

“No offense, but you don’t have what I would call a “striking” family resemblance.” Jörmungandr was the sort of creature that generally came up in magical texts under “apocalypse - see end of all things” or “seriously, don’t fuck with this thing.” And I was sitting next to his daddy. Yay me.

 

“Do you look as you were even a year ago?” The creature joked back. “No, I am not as I was - that is the way of these things. Pantheons grow, create their roles, fulfil their duties, then fade back as they are no longer needed or are no longer wanted. The universe is littered with the bones of things that once made reality itself quake at their presence.”

 

“That’s kind of a fatalistic attitude towards power, dontcha think?” Though in truth it was hard to feel anything other than fatalistic in this place. The dead city was covered in the dust of ages, a remnant of the once powerful Goa’uld civilization that had ruled over Earth thousands of years ago. I could see rows of petrified trees within dead gardens full of bone dry fountains, things of beauty that had long since gone to ruin. There were empty markets full of stalls made from wood that looked as though it would dissolve the instant anyone touched them and advertisements carved into the rock-walls behind them for offers long since expired.

 

“Perhaps, is not fatalism the appropriate response to the inevitability of Entropy?” Inquired the little man.

 

“What, life ends so what’s the point? We should all just roll up in a ball and die because we’re going to die eventually? Pardon my french but fuck that.” I snorted. “I’m not about to give up on life just because life is hard and death happens.”

 

There was a long pause before the little man began his strange, trilling laughter. “Oh, he was right - I do like you. Well said, young one. And who better to battle entropy than two gods of chaos? I think that even as a mortal I would have endured your presence, young one.”

 

“I thought you found out who I was for yourself.” I replied, very much wondering who the “he” in question was.

 

“I wasn’t alone at the time, dear boy.” Loki scoffed. “I am exiled, not dead. I socialize.”

 

“You were socializing about me - with whom?” I gritted my teeth, dreading the sort of thing that met for tea with a god of mischief.

 

“Kringle and I meet on occasion to discuss my scientific work.” Loki replied. “My research is of supreme interest to him.”

 

“You… and Santa?” I blinked.

 

“We operate within similar social circles.” Replied Loki, the norse god of mischief.

 

“I didn’t see Old Saint Nick as being the sort to go for that whole scientific stuff.” I spoke, briefly imagining the barrel-chested fairy with a lab-coat and goggles.

 

“That’s because - and understand that I say this with the best of intentions - you’re an idiot.” The creature waved away my offended look with a tiny finger. “By comparison, it’s not to your discredit. You’re starting at a disadvantage by by being born human. Don’t get me wrong, you’re closer to the Blood of Eden than most of your species, but you’re still barely clever enough to understand the path you’ve begun or to where it might lead.”

 

“Humans are dumber than you so they should just listen?” I scoffed.

 

“You are both dumber than I am, and no longer human. The faster you accept both of those facts the quicker we can stop you from potentially killing us all.” Loki stood up and walked into the throne room, gesturing to the wide open space. The capacious hall was lined with forty-two small thrones encircling a wide plinth. At the center of the raised, stone circle was a large set of scales, carved from diorite. At either side of the scales were two massive thrones cast from bronze with symbols of jackals on the one and crocodiles on the other. “Do you recognize where we are, Dresden.”

 

“I… I thought that it was a metaphor, not an actual - physical place.” I’d read the Egyptian Book of the Dead before. It was basically required reading for both the budding wizard and the teenage loner, and I had been both. The forty-two seats surrounding me were presumably the seats in which souls to be judged confessed their sins to the pantheon, telling providing them with the negative affirmations that they had not been bad people in life. The remaining two were obviously those occupied by Ammit and Anubis. According to legend, when Egyptians died they would have to pass a series of trials before being judged by Ammit and Anubis, who would - after weighing the sins of a man’s heart against a feather - either pass that soul along to Osiris to get it to Paradise or feed it to Ammit to annihilate it entirely.

 

“This place is not what it once was. The powers that fed it and made it are waning. Other gods and beings have taken up the roles that were once filled by Jörmungandrson and Jörmungandrdottir. Now this is little more than a room full of the ghosts of the past.” He gestured to shapes moving at the edges of the room. “Some livelier than others.”

 

I followed his gaze, watching as the shambling, mummified forms of hundreds of mummified Pharaohs and servants entered the room. They were ancient, even by the standards of ancient things, but necromancy only grew more powerful with time. The cold power of death seeped into the room as they came, eyes glowing with the shimmering power of a goa’uld hosts. They shambled eagerly into the space, their rasping voices no longer able to make words as they chanted some long-forgotten song.

 

The forty-two Pharaohs took their thrones, their necromantic bodies pulsing with the power of Naquadah from what I was certain were the mummified symbiotes within them. Their servants, wives, pets and attendants came with them in varying states of dessication. The oldest of them were little more than spirits borne along by dust, still carrying out their appointed duties.

 

“Do you know why the Jörmungandrson take hosts, Dresden?” Inquired Loki, looking around at the undead conclave of Pharaohs.

 

“Because they need bodies?” It seemed rather obvious.

 

“Because they need souls.” Loki disagreed, his sadness palpable. “Jörmungandr is a creature of the purely material, a being of reality. When he dies, as when they die - they will cease. That is why they were useful to the Fairies. That is why they were chosen by the Ogdoad. Because you cannot corrupt the spirit of a being that has no spiritual weight of their own.”

 

I blinked, looking at the elaborate processional to help souls along to the afterlife. “The Goa’uld were pretty obsessed with death for a species that didn’t have a life after.”

 

“They had to steal, cheat, fight, and do anything to earn their way into the hereafter that they could not, by themselves, earn.” Loki waved to the conclave, staring at us with piercing, rotted eyes. “I promise you this, Dresden. Whatever injustices the gods do to you in life, know that they envy your death more than anything you could imagine.”

 

“The Goa’uld want to die?”

 

“The Goa’uld want to matter. Whatever other choices they have made, know that more than anything else they desire a legacy beyond the void they know waits for them when all else passes.” He pointed to the mummies. “These things you see are but the first of a series of choices they made in an effort to avoid the gaping nothing.”

 

I shivered, trying to imagine knowing that there wasn’t even the potential for life after life. Sure - I wasn’t sure what happened next, nobody could be. But I at least had the hope. I knew there was something. I couldn’t be sure what but I’d seen enough spirits to believe that there was something. It would be one thing if I were an atheist and believed that there wasn’t life after death, but knowing that both there was life after death and that I wouldn’t get to live it would be a deeply bitter pill to swallow.

 

Oh hell’s bells. It very well might be a pill I had to swallow. “You’re telling me that I will cease when I die, aren’t you?”

 

“No, you have undergone the Ritual of Necromantic Ascension. You have bound what you are to what you were not, and become more than both.” The mummies rasped agitatedly as he spoke, an envious lilt to their rasping whisper of a song. “You are more, and can become more as a result.”

 

I wasn’t sure I was going to like what happened to me after I died, but I liked having the chance a damn sight more than I liked having no chance at all. Which, now that I thought about it, explained a great deal of the cruelty and bitterness I’d seen out of the Goa’uld to their servants. “Is that the folly of Thoth then? Their aspiration to live on after death?”

 

“No, Thoth’s folly was greater than you could imagine and more mundane than any could ever believe. Words - only words, but ideas are the most dangerous weapon you could imagine.” Loki sighed, shimmering back into his human form as he ran a finger along the rim of the scales. “A single sentence - not the one the Goa’uld were allowed to remember, that would be madness. But to understand that, you must understand why the Goa’uld were allowed dominion over mortals.”

 

“To protect them, right? From dangerous old things? The stuff they keep in prisons?” I replied.

 

“What do you know of the Outsiders?” As soon as Loki spoke the words the mummified conclave snarled in uniform contempt, their utter vitriol for the Outsiders palpale.

 

“Not much… knowing anything about them was pretty strictly forbidden by the White Council. They’re evil, they’re powerful, and they want in. More than that… I don’t really know.” I shrugged. “Other than that the Goa’uld were fighting them at some point.”

 

“We have all been fighting them since first Folly, the one that came long before Thoth’s mistake. Another battled them at the Gates. The Goa’uld fought the troops that escaped their siege.” Loki gestured to the collected Pharaohs. “Goa’uld died in their endless war for time beyond your reconing. They grew in power until they finally had garnered dominion enough to feel they were not only able to survive against the forces of the foe, they believed they could prosper.”

 

“They tried to ally with the Outsiders?” I scoffed. “Yeah, that will end well.”

 

“No, young one. Fools have always tried to do that.” Loki shook his head. “Seventeen words spoke in jest nearly ended the universe, “Since they cannot touch us let us invade their place of nightmares.Let them bleed and tremble. ”

 

“Invade? They tried to conquer the Outsiders.” A single outsider was a potentially apocalyptic threat, the idea of attacking their homeland and strongholds was a preposterous notion. “But that’s…”

 

“... Insane? Yes. Which is why I suppose nobody tried it till the Goa’uld.” The creature’s eyes shimmered black as he smiled a madman’s grin. “Their allies didn’t stop them because it seemed too absurd to even believe. And when their campaigns started to actually work they didn’t dare stop them.”

 

“You can’t conquer outsiders.” My voice most definitely didn’t crack in a near girlish screech of petulance at the pure madness of it.

 

“Of course not.” Loki’s agreement was one of the most sorrowful things I’d ever heard. “Not without becoming something even more terrible than they. They fed upon the creatures they conquered as you fed upon one to become what you are now. Dagon was the first, but he was neither the last nor the most terrible of them. Old Gods and terrible things, all of the outside was not to be trusted.”

 

“And you think that I’m going to go all Cujo and start eating Outsiders?” I gagged at the thought of it. “It’s really not part of my plans.”

 

“It wasn’t part of Dagon’s either and yet he lies exiled beyond the Gates.” Loki’s mismatched eyes changed colors, never once shifting in unison but glowing violently with rage. “Learn from history child, else relive tragedy.”

 

I paused, considering what I’d been told. “How did they defeat them? I mean, if they were going over to the dark side, that had to mess up the whole flow of the war.”

 

Loki touched the jackal headed chair wistfully. “Those still loyal to the Ogdoad hatched a scheme, forcing the Terms with the Sidhe while the greatest of them sought out a route to power greater than the necromantic rituals practiced by their people. They defeated the broken ones and their allies, but the doom already was.”

 

“Did you bring me here to judge me?” I pointed to the scales. “Take out my heart? Weight it against a feather? I’m not the monsters they were.”

 

Loki sighed exasperatedly. “ Have you been listening to a word I’ve said Dresden? I brought you here precisely because they weren’t monsters. Not at first. They were focused on justice and the preservation of life.”

 

His black eyes glimmered with starlight, similar to my own. “I brought you here to remind you that even gods fall from grace.”


	28. Chapter 28

The Trickster god tapped the massive Scales, clicking his long nails against the stone surface. It pulsed with a soft green glow where he touched it, causing his imitation skin to ripple with the weight of its curious power. “I feel I have lingered longer than I ought to, Dresden - there are things in motion that will soon come to affect us all.”

 

“I don’t suppose these are things you actually plan on telling me about, are they?” I leaned against my staff, trying to take in the sheer volume of information that Loki had just told me. The idea of invading the outside was beyond insane. Outsiders weren’t exactly from anywhere - they were, in point of fact, from exactly nowhere. The sheer mechanics of trying to invade a place that wasn’t part of either reality or linear time as we knew it were - literally - beyond my ability to comprehend.

 

“Obviously not.” Loki’s image of human form dismissed and I was once again facing the little grey Roswellian. He walked past the collected Pharaohs, whispering something in a chittering language into the ear of one of the seated Pharaohs as he did so. “I’ve told you more than enough to go on for the moment.”

 

I walked up to follow him, only to find a transparent barrier of energy between us. My gauntlet sparked off the barrer, pulsed orange lightning illuminating the circular shield enclosing me within the onlooking mummies. “Loki! What the hell?”

 

“Dresden, you have spent - in my estimation - nearly a year doing your best to avoid critical thinking. I am removing the luxury of distractions, so that you can stop and consider what you do next.” He pulled out a glowing stone from thin air, resting it with no visible tether three feet above the ground as he tapped a sequence of symbols along its edge. “Your pathological aversion to self-reflection was barely tolerable when you didn’t have billions of lives in your hands. It thus falls to your betters to correct it.”

 

“And trapping me in a Steven Sommer’s film helps me with that how exactly?” I gestured to the whispering collective of mummified onlookers. The long dead Goa’uld chittered and rasped, but seemed in no hurry to interact with me. “This isn’t exactly feeling overly helpful to me.”

 

“Dresden, Dresden, Dresden.” Loki murmured, in near disappointment. “I thought you knew your history better than that. Have you forgotten who and what I am?” The grey creature’s eyes sparkled with mischief as he disappeared into a pillar of silver light.

 

I pinched the bridge of my nose, running over multiplication tables in my head as I tried to focus on something other than the blinding rage I felt for my own stupidity. Of course he trapped me in a forcefield while he left me to wait for my friends. He was freaking Loki. I was lucky to get away from him with just a minor inconvenience.

 

Hell’s Bells, if even some of the Norse legends about that guy were true I could have been in for way worse. That guy was less “rape and pillage” and more “turn myself into a horse and give birth” style nuts.

 

Which, come to think about it, brought up another problem entirely. Could I trust even a single world that had come out of that guy’s mouth? The fact that Ammit and Enlil both vouched for his authenticity didn’t exactly speak volumes to his character. Sure, Enlil and Ammit were my monsters but they were still monsters. About the only part of his story I was pretty sure could be taken at face value was the fact that the Goa’uld evolutionary chain was going to confuse the hell out of me.

 

“I don’t suppose any of you feels like letting me out of here?” I inquired to the mummies. They remained ungratifying mute. Admittedly, I much preferred their silent observation to that active malice I’d encountered from the last massed group of undead creatures I’d dealt with - back when the Necromancers had been attempting to enact the Darkhallow. But these were a different breed of undead from the unsophisticated slave constructs the Necromancers I’d seen before had been able to summon.

 

I recognized the stitch work along the linen wrappings and the hieroglyphs along the jewelry they wore. They were magical symbols intended to preserve not only the soul within the physical body, but to allow the undead construct to retain the same keen intellect and capacity for thought in death that the being had experienced in life. The Great Library of Nekheb contained what was possibly the greatest collection of studies into the art of Necromancy that had ever been conducted. There were massive gaps in the literature - empty shelves of materials that had been purged from the Library as part of the Terms - but what remained was still many centuries more information into the subject of staving off death than I had ever believed even possible. Apparently once the ethics of valuing any individual human life ceased to be part of one’s personal calculus, one could conduct necromantic research on a mass scale beyond my wildest nightmares.

 

The mummified creatures surrounding me weren’t the “real” beings any more than a ghost was really the person who’d left behind their shade. They were psychic impressions of who that person had been, copies of their memories and reflections of their souls bound to a discrete purpose in death. In truth, Loki’s explanation - or as much of it has actually been truth - explained a good deal of the three separate states of the soul as the Goa’uld saw them. Their elaborate death and necromantic rituals to see to the needs of the Ka, Ba, and Akh - each of which would have separate needs when a man died - made sense in context with the irregular nature of how the Goa’uld borrowed spiritual weight from either their Unas or human host body. Preserving a remnant of stolen soul within a properly prepared host was possibly all the afterlife that the early Goa’uld could have hoped for.

 

How much would Heka’s stolen flesh affect my own soul after I died? I was certain that I would eventually die - everything ceased eventually. But even within the Great Library there was basically nothing recorded that referenced even the existence of the Ritual of Necromantic Ascension, let alone what the postmortal consequences of having undergone it might be. Life after death wasn’t something that I’d felt overly confident in even when I’d just been Harry Dresden, Wizard. I hadn’t been a bad person - and I’d done enough good things for the right side of that equation that I was hopeful that I’d get to a nicer afterlife, but there was the whole “thou shalt not suffer a witch” part of the equation that even having spoken to an Angel directly left me a bit wary of my prospects.

 

Having God’s hype guy at my coronation left me pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be smote by the Holy Hosts any time soon, but there were way too many people worshipping me for at least three of Big G’s top ten no-nos not to be majorly in the red side of that ledger. The whole “burning DuMorne alive” thing pretty much guaranteed me another two screw ups for both “shalt not kill” and “honor thy father.” About the Commandment that I hadn’t screwed up was the prohibition on adultery, come to think of it.

 

It wasn’t my fault that I’d become what I am, but “a Fallen Angel’s Shadow made me do it” didn’t exactly sound like a reason for the White God to excuse the whole “rival god created by necromancy” thing. Who would I even ask to figure something like that out? I wasn’t insane enough to summon the Metatron and abducting the Pope didn’t feel like a “fast track my way to Heaven” sort of choice to make. The Knights of the Cross might have the answers but I didn’t dare make contact with Michael Carpenter, he was too tied to my past, or Shiro, I’d be too tempted to meddle in his life to prevent his death. And Sanya… Sanya was Sanya. I wasn’t going to find spiritual answers from a Knight of the Cross who didn’t believe in God.

 

Michael’s answer would more than likely be for me to abandon my power and seek the Lord’s forgiveness. And honestly, I wasn’t convinced that walking away from my power was even an option any more. It might have been for Harry the Wizard, but I wasn’t even Harry the human any more - as Loki had been so blunt to point out only moments ago.

 

My mind raced, uncomfortably forced by my own mortality and the reality of my situation as I stood in the circle. I looked at the watch on my wrist, considering the distance between the Pyramid and where I’d seen the shape of Ammit leading my retinue through the Necropolis. Assuming there was no mystical or technological short-cut to the pyramid, it would take them ten hours to reach where I was on foot. Longer still, if they took time to rest for the mortal men. Muminah would be fine, she’d been raised in a primarily agrarian society and walking for days at a time wouldn’t even register as strange to her, but the Russians had lived with the Automobile. Their stamina wouldn’t match hers, especially after the prolonged exertion to reach this point. I’d be lucky if they didn’t actually make camp half way to me, which seemed likely. Ammit felt this place was safe. More importantly, Enlil thought it was safe - that man mistrusted everything that didn’t put several million armed Jaffa and a planetary defense screen between himself and danger. If he was comfortable somewhere, it was damn near guaranteed to be safe.

 

I didn’t love the idea of my brother alone with the Russians and the Goa’uld, but Muminah would protect him because she knew I cared about him and Kincaid would keep him alive just because he was the only other guy there exclusively at the Archive’s behest. I hoped they would - I didn’t want to know what I might do if something happened to him. Not with the power I now had, I didn’t want to know what I would do with it to someone who hurt someone I loved.

 

Not with how potentially dangerous actually using that power seemed to be. I pulled off my gauntlet and examined my porcelain-white hand, staring at the dark veins beneath the skin. I had felt that same flesh rotting away into nothingness, putrefying as I expended massive amounts of my own power. It had reformed when I had stopped, but I was certain that if Ammit hadn’t interceded I might have rotted myself into a fetid mass of nothing as I annihilated the fairies.

 

I moved to sit down in the bronze throne capped with crocodiles, only to meet another force field barring me from reaching it. I groaned. “Oh, come on. I can’t even sit down?”

 

I looked at the other chair, weighing the value of getting shocked again versus the value of potentially being able to sit down. I didn’t want to sit on the floor if I didn’t have to do so, but Goa’uld made force fields hurt to touch. I gave it about thirty minutes before I said, “Screw it, it’s this or sit on the floor.” and reached out towards the bronze seat covered in Jackals. To my extreme gratification, I was not barred from touching it. I sat down upon it, exhaling deeply in relaxation as I felt my spine fall into alignment as the chair automatically reclined into a comfortable position. It pivoted towards the scale, internal mechanisms groaning as the ancient throne pivoted counter-clockwise to face the scale from its previous position looking out at the circle of pharaohs.

 

“Well… that’s different.” I muttered as my hand found the octagonal gems along the hand rest, caressing them as I felt their welling font of power. The chair was a foci - a tool like my staff or blasting rod, with an apparent ectomantic or necromantic purpose in mind. It took me all of half a second to realize what that purpose might be as I was suddenly subject to hundreds of ghostly forms that had previously been cloaked from view. The chair, the room, and possibly even the entire necropolis had been designed to better facilitate interactions with beings of spirit.

 

I was not, in fact, just holding court for the Pharaohs and their assorted mummy entourages. The vast expanse of the pyramid wasn’t empty, it was utterly overrun by ghosts and spirits of every description I could possibly imagine. The Pharaohs and mummified creatures, that had seemed still and without passion only moments ago, became apparent vehicles for the vibrant blue-green shades of the men, women, children, and cats they had once been. They were gleefully bantering, gabbing away with each other as I might have expected from any living court of Jaffa and Humans on Nekheb.

 

There was a wide space between the doors of the great hall where none of the spirits trod, a wide section of open stone leading down to the colossal stairway. The spirits stared into that void expectantly, watching and waiting for something that never came. The souls of the dead? It seemed likely. Though neither Anubis nor Ammit still served in their roles as judge and jury for the deceased, the mummified Pharaohs still stood vigil – waiting to shepherd good men on to what lay beyond.

 

The whispering voices of the Pharaohs became a sonorous choir of men discussing matters of import in vibrating tones of amusement, their ghostly voices still humming with the metallic drone of the Goa’uld. Their language was still alien to me, echoing and distant like music echoing in a warehouse. It was familiar enough to know that they were speaking words but distorted by time and neglect. Perhaps when this place had been full of gods and empowered by worshippers they’d been more than just animated memories, but now they were just a reflection of what had been.

 

What had this place truly been like when it had been the dominion of Ammit and Anubis? Judging by how little of the Goa’uld records survived regarding him, I was certain that the same magical purge of memories that had been applied to every other memory of Thoth’s Folly had been applied to him. He'd been an instrumental figure in the Folly of Thoth, important enough to merit a complete near-complete erasure of his roles in the Pantheon but I had some facts about him. I knew that he’d been exiled at least twice, possibly as many as four times, though none of them seemed to actually last “for all time” as the prescribed punishment would imply was their intention. I was reasonably certain that it had been he who imprisoned on the same planet on which I’d conducted the Ritual of Necromantic Ascension.

 

Assuming, of course, that the Jackal that came up in the mad ravings of Cum Hau was the same Jackal who’d once sat in the throne I now occupied. Bob seemed to think it was plausible. Both Goa’uld had been death gods for their respective pantheons and both had been psychopomps - spirits who saw to the disposition of spirits after they died. It was clear that he’d been powerful, even after the fall of the Pantheons. There had been too much security at the prison where I’d found the Key of the Dead for anything but the most dangerous of inmates.

 

But other than knowing that he was extremely dangerous, probably alive, and affiliated with death the truth was that I knew very little about the Egyptian God of the Dead, in spite of having lived in a palace with his former second in command. She didn’t talk about him except in the vaguest of terms and always with a tone of extreme sorrow. Ammit was, near as I could tell, the only living Goa’uld who still harbored fond feelings for the psychopomp of the Egyptians. It wasn’t clear what of her silence on the subject was the Terms robbing her of the ability to remember him and what of that was the pain of losing a sibling but it was abundantly clear that Ammit would not be compelled to speak of him except in maddening vagueness.

 

Enlil had been much more vocal, and substantially pejorative in his opinions of “the Jackal.” It was apparently common knowledge among the System Lords that Anubis had died the wars that followed the Terms imposed upon the Goa’uld - killed by a coalition of the other Goa’uld for his “boundless ambition” and “unspeakable crimes.”

 

I hadn’t pressed him for details on either Anubis or Cum Hau beyond what I could bring up casually and neither person found themselves in regular conversation. In part because I didn’t want to let them in on how one conducted the Ritual of Necromantic Ascension and in part because I didn’t want him to realize that Anubis very well might now be free.

 

I couldn’t say why I hadn’t shared my suspicions about Anubis with anyone other than Bob. Maybe it was the fact that none of his legends actually made the guy out to be that bad. Maybe it was the fact that Ammit liked him and Enlil hated him. Perhaps it was how much Heka’s diaries seemed to indicate that he despised Anubis. But it was probably mostly because I didn’t want to think about Lash.

 

It was hard for me to talk about anything that happened on that moon. Not without thinking about her.

 

I was angry for what she’d made me into, but it was hard to stay angry at the dead. Not when they were as badly missed as I missed Lash. I winced at the thought of how cruel my words had been to Lash after the ritual - she hadn’t deserved that. Not then, not ever. Not when she’d sacrificed herself for me. I tried not to dwell on that thought. Lash was in heaven, I reminded myself. She would be happy.

 

It was true, but why didn’t that make me feel any better?

 

My mind wandered to the dream of her I’d had after my coronation. The fantasy of flesh meeting flesh had been so real, so loving. It had been a dream – it had to have been a dream. I watched the Metatron take her away into death. I’d not had a dream that vivid since the night of my coronation, I hadn’t slept much at all since then. But even in idle daydreams the Fallen Angel’s shadow was a prominent player nearly as much as Susan was nowadays.

 

Both women were lost to me now.

 

“You are not Anubis.” Rasped a reedy voice as a mote of shadow congealed into a robed form, a spectral blob of ectoplasmic residue shimmering into a complete body. This was no ghost – it had substance to it in addition to form.

 

“I am indeed not.” I agreed, looking the curious personage from head to toe. He wore clothing that might have been Egyptian – or perhaps Greek – a loose fitting black tunic that covered his near skeletal body. His close cropped hair bordered a face that might have been considered handsome – if not for the gaping pits where his eyes ought to have been. A glimpse of the mirror polished necklace on the neck of one of the Pharaohs told me that there had been bleeding holes gouged in the back of his head, into which the wild and crazed eyes of the man had been put after ripping them out from the front of the man’s face.

 

Oh – Stars and Stones – I recognized him. I wanted to kick myself. Not because I thought I was in any real danger – the Ferryman was reportedly an extremely benign creature of the Nevernever. I was furious because it had not been my studies of magic, history or even the voluminous repositories of learning on Nekheb that I recognized him from. No – that would have been too dignified for Harry Dresden. God help me, if Billy Borden ever found out that I, Harry Dresden, Wizard of the White Council, Defeater of Loup-Garou, Slayer of Vampires, Summoned of Fairies, Defeater of Necromancers and Ascended God-King of a freaking Alien domain, recognized a figure from legend from one of his Arcanos games I would never hear the end of it.

 

“You are Mahaf, I presume?” I inquired of the man with the backwards face. “The Ferryman who carries the dead to the other side.”

 

“I am one of the Ferrymen.” Replied the creature, picking at the blood seeping from his eye sockets. “The River is too large for any one man, even with a boat as magnificent as mine.”

 

“I don’t suppose that you would care to tell me something about this place, or Anubis?” I inquired, leaning forward in the throne.

 

“I carry the dead across.” The thing replied. “I don’t bother with the affairs of either side.”

 

“You… you’ve seen the other side?” I couldn’t help but be curious. It wasn’t common that one had the opportunity to speak with something that was supposed to cross the lines between life and death.

 

“Ain’t nobody supposed to see. It’s why I can swap the eyes.” The Ferryman replied. He rocked his head forward and his eyes spun from the back of his head to the front, bloody marbles shining blue as they tumbled to face forwards. “Charon got rid of them altogether – but I like to see the people in my boat. Makes for better conversation.”

 

“You work with the boatman to Hades?” I knew that Hades controlled a realm within the Nevernever. He was one of the big players in the spiritual world - I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d gain some of the Egyptian pantheon’s servitors after the Folly.

 

“I have to work for someone and there are only so many I’d care to work with.” The boatman was very deliberate in his use of that last word. His eyes flashed twice, pulsing with the light of a Goa’uld. “I’m not looking for new management, if you get my drift. I don’t care if you are a scion of Anubis’ power. I’m already gainfully employed.”

 

I let that sentence sink in for a second, biting back the migraine I knew was incoming. “Even if I’m what?”

 

“I can taste the blessings of Anubis upon you. The kiss of the True Death. I don’t care if he’s willing to let you in his inner circle, I’ve got enough to do already without adding a third afterlife to my career. I’m not paid enough as is.” The Ferryman crossed his arms, tilting his head back petulantly as his eyes rolled back into his head – once again exposing the bloody sockets. “Aint nobody sitting in that chair what don’t have Anubis’ blessings on em’ – so don’t you try lying to me. I’ve been around too long to pull that one on me.”

 

He made an effort to wink, a truly stomach churning gesture given that it pinched one socket enough to prevent the bloody eye from rolling back forward but not the other. Instead of the cheeky expression he was going for it looked more like the blistering pustule of his left eyeball was jammed halfway through a fleshy, bleeding tube-sock in his skull. “Now I’m polite enough to come when called – even if it is my day off.”

 

“The Ferryman to the afterlife takes day’s off?” I asked the question in befuddlement as I tried to unpack whatever it was that he was telling me. Presumably this blessing – whatever it was – had been given to Cum Hau and piggybacked its way to me when I’d consumed his power.

 

“We have a Union.” The man said proudly. “Charon’s idea. Apparently it was something the mortals started doing in Greece and we don’t see as many souls bound for Hades these days so the Boss wasn’t too put out by it.”

 

“Ah – what, exactly, does this blessing Anubis gave me… do?” I asked, the memory of a mordite blade through my chest giving me at least one major hint.

 

“It lets you touch death – do you know nothing of your work, lad?” The Ferryman tutted disappointedly. “It won’t make you immortal but you can touch the water from the stream and stones from the River’s bank – even from places the River does not travel.”

 

I winced at that logic. “How can there be a place stones from the “bank” of a River if the river goes nowhere near them?”

 

“No clue, but it hasn’t stopped the bastards from trying to jump into it and make a dam to stop it.” The Ferryman grinned. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, sir – if you aren’t going to demand my service, I’d very much like to get back to my vacation. I’ve got places to be – ya’ see.”

 

“Where?” I asked, still a bit befuddled by this interaction.

 

“Lake Tahoe.” The Ferryman grinned, pulling a set of sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat from his tunic. “There’s a lass I met at Burning Man who I have a date with and I do not mean to miss it.”

 

“You… you go to Burning Man on your off hours?” I asked, trying to suss out at least some logic from this conversation. It just felt strange to think of the spectral Goa’uld hanging out with the drugged up trust-fund crows that frequented that sort of thing. Not that his preposterous choice of clothing would be noticed there, come to think of it. “Isn’t Burning Man in the middle of a Desert?”

 

“So was Egypt.” Replied the Ferryman, dissolving back into ectoplasm.

 

I stood up from the throne, wondering if Loki had drugged me or if I had hallucinated that entire interaction out of some sort of psychotic break. I eventually reconciled myself to having actually met the Ferryman - regardless of how mad the interaction had seemed. There were some creatures of the Nevernever that defied any measure of sanity, even if they meant you no harm. I shook off the interaction, stretching my legs as I looked at the chronometer on my gauntlet. Hours still till I could expect Ammit and the rest, I tapped the forcefield with my staff just to re-assure myself that I was still trapped.

 

Yep – it was still there. I was still trapped at the center of the Pharoahs, in the middle of the massive crowd of ghosts. Ghost that were still there. Ghosts that I could still see, plain as day. Ghosts that had been invisible before I’d sat down in that chair. Ghosts that were still visible now that I wasn’t sitting in that chair anymore. A chair that had summoned Anubis’ former servitor across the planet because he knew I was marked by Anubis.

 

“God damn it Dresden,” I groaned. “You just had to sit in the chair.”


	29. Chapter 29

Have you ever had half a day to do nothing but consider how much of an idiot you really are? I mean really just sit down without any distractions or complications to pull you away from the magnitude of all the bad decisions you’ve been making lately. It wasn’t the first time I’d been literally forced into a moment of introspection, but it was one of the few times I was literally trapped with the object of my feelings of shame.

 

That freaking chair. I just had to sit in that freaking chair.

 

I’d been left behind in this room with just one, single instruction from Loki. Think before I act. And what do I do? I sit on Anubis’ throne because I don’t feel like standing. I do the literal opposite of what was suggested to me and yet again marked myself with powers that I didn’t even begin to understand.

 

I sat there for hours, contemplating what the right thing to do even was. I ran over my decisions from the past days, months, and years – trying to figure out what I could have done differently. Sure it was easy to doubt myself in retrospect, but how could I possibly have made a different choice in the moment? It wasn’t like I tried to take the most difficult route possible. It just so happened that the morally right choice was often the most painful one to take.

 

I hoped I was making the right choices.

 

I looked down at my hands, searching for seams in the flesh where there ought to have been scars as I pulled off my gauntlets to examine my porcelain white flesh. There were no scars, no marks, no wounds of any kind even though I know the flesh had been rotted down to the bone. I’d seen that sort of thing before, but never from mortal flesh. It was the sort of thing that happened to the ectoplasmic bodies Fairies and Demons created for themselves from the stuff of the Nevernever.

 

“I’m not human.” I spoke the words slowly, addressing them to the Pharaohs for lack of another audience. Their shambling forms murmured with rasping whispers in reply as I talked, hissing the memories of what had stopped being language long ago. “I stopped being human when I killed Cum Hau. No – that’s wrong, I stopped being human the moment Lash attacked Heka.”

 

I paused in my speech, realizing that the mummies were laser focused on my words. The forty two Pharaohs leaned forward as I spoke, their eyes glowing slightly with that same green glow I recognized from Ammit’s display of power on the Helicopter. Whatever power or agency granted her the ability to see truth from lies must extend to the pharaohs. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen if I lied or stopped talking, but I knew for sure that it wouldn’t be good.

 

So, for the first time in I can’t remember how long, I told the truth. I told them who I was. I told them what I had done. I told them everything. I couldn’t remember the forty two specific sins I was supposed to be confessing, but I did remember my own life. And when I mean everything, I mean everything. I unburdened myself of every sin, every mistake, every childhood fear, every moment of sadness in the orphanage, every regret, every love, every case - I told them everything that had led me up to that point.

 

I needed to tell them. I couldn’t have put my finger on exactly why I was trusting this court of spirits with things I’d never even admitted to myself, let alone another person. But the deep well of power that had become my mantle pulsed with the conviction that I was doing the right thing as I spoke. As I unburdened myself of my history and regrets the tumultuous storm of energies that always seemed at the edge of my mind calmed, the very act of unburdening myself of my secrets seeming to rob me of their power over me.

 

The tight wrappings around the mouths of the Pharaohs pulled away from their lips as I continued, their desiccated jaws unhinging as I talked. Motes of icy blue detached from my pale fingers as they did so, brilliant blue moving from my fingers into them. The icy touch of death was upon those motes, the cloying touch of necromancy in them.

 

Unlike my previous experiences with necromancy, however, the collective of Pharaohs seemed to be leeching the seductive sensation of oblivion away from me. It was the direct opposite of what being in a Sarcophagus had felt like, the glorious sensation of life rushed into me as the excess necromantic buildup siphoned away from me.

 

I hadn’t realized just how much of the taint of black magic had been building up within me, corrupting my body and spirit, until it started leeching away from me. It was as though the scales were being cast away from my eyes and I was suddenly able to see the world again. It was as though I could finally remember being happy, even though I hadn’t even realized I was in the depths of depression. Tears welled in my eyes as I spoke of my life, my companions, and even what little remained of my family. Stars and Stones, I talked for hours until my voice was horse and I was barely able to keep talking.

 

A deep well of sadness that seemed to have been walled off from me – either through necromancy or willing avoidance of my loss – hit me all at once as I tried to choke out the life I’d lost in Chicago. My little apartment, my basement, and my office – I wasn’t speaking of things that were going to be part of my life again. I was mourning the death of who I had once been.

 

“I’m never going to be able to go back.” I spoke the words, twisting my neck to return my helmet into the neck of my armor as my tears pooled in my visor and blotted out my HUD. They were as true as anything I’d ever said. “I’m not Harry anymore, I don’t get to be who I used to be.”

 

“No.” Spoke a voice chattering with the hollow rasp of rigor-mortis. I lifted my tear-stained face to look up at the nearest pharaoh. He glowed blue with the shimmering light of the necromancy taken from me, his dessicated flesh now revered to a ghastly pallor more resembling that of a recently deceased corpse than what he had once resembled. The entire court seemed to have restored itself to functionality, those of them with mummies or dust turned into zombie-like creatures of similar wholeness and those without form glowing with the solidness of ectoplasm. “But all things must end, Advocate. Change is inviolate.”

 

I looked around at the suddenly invigorated court of the dead, watching as the vast legions of servants, pets, family, and slaves moved with actual agency and purpose rather than the shadowed memory of purpose and function I’d seen only moments ago. “You’re more spry than you seemed to be a moment ago there, King Tut.”

 

“King Khayu.” The Pharoah corrected me. “I speak for the Judges, Advocate, just as you will one day speak for the dead.”

 

“I can barely speak for myself.” I joked, pulling my gauntlets back on my fingers as I tried to get a count of the invigorated dead. “Yeesh. How many of you ended up feeding off that story?”

 

“The dead feed off of memories. We rely upon the truth of others to keep us going so that we might help them to where their truth is immortal. Your truth carried particular weight, Advocate. The secret truth of a God’s sins is a greater meal than the court has supped on since the last Advocate and Executioner departed us.” The Pharaoh stroked his jeweled imitation beard. “You’ve restored them all Warden. The court is once more. Once you are ready to stand judgement, you and the executioner can continue your duties.”

 

“I don’t think there are people to judge anymore.” I replied in confusion. “Earth hasn’t worshipped the Egyptian gods in centuries.”

 

“And yet I see a trail of millions why cry out to you to help them find their path to the next world.” The Pharaoh replied, his eyes glowing yellow with the light of the Goa’uld spirit within him. “Hades has taken them thus far, Advocate – keeping them in holding until such time as they can be properly claimed. But it is a poor god who abandons the souls of his followers to the mercies of other pantheons.”

 

“I never promised them an afterlife.” I growled. “I never told them to worship me.”

 

The Pharaoh tilted his head in confusion, his eyes glowing gold then green before reverting to a shimmering gold. “No… you didn’t… but you won’t abandon them. Not now. Not now that you know that you hold dominion over them.”

 

He waved his hand and a seemingly endless line of glowing white figures shimmered into being. A queue of men, women, and children all looking terrified for what came next. Oh, hell’s bells. I recognized some of them. The head of the queue were Jaffa who’d died fighting alongside me on Delmak. I didn’t even know their names and they’d died praying for me to save their souls.

 

“I – I don’t have a boatman. I don’t have an afterlife to send them to. I don’t even know if I have the right to try.” The sheer weight of responsibility was utterly beyond me. “Hell’s bells – I can’t stay here forever just to judge the living and the dead. I have responsibilities to the living. I have to save the Archive.”

 

The Pharaoh snapped his fingers and the line disappeared. “They are safe in Hades for now, Advocate. But his patience will not last forever. You will have to address your duties eventually. Until then, the court can wait.”

 

“I – I don’t know what I should do.” I waved at the court of dead men. “This, I didn’t ask for any of it. I’m just trying to keep my head above water.”

 

“Advocate, nobody asks for responsibility.” The Pharaohs and their attendants tittered, ghastly amusement echoing in the wide hall. “Responsibility finds those who cannot help but exercise it. As to your doubts in general – I can only tell you that you have found the kindness and peace in life that most of our kind do not find until long after they’ve been forced to officiate ending.”

 

“I’m not really your kind though, am I?” I replied, suddenly uncomfortable that I’d been so forthright with the mummies. My mantle had prompted it, but it had also felt that murdering people to weather set to Queen had been a reasoned response. Perhaps its judgement was a bit… faulty at times.

 

As though he could read my mind, the Pharaoh replied jovially. His rasping whisper held a song of laughter to it. He seemed genuine in his intent as he said, “Worry not for your secrets – death protects the truth of Sins from the living. Only the Judges and the Advocate truly know the magnitude of a man.”

 

“Not the executioner?” It was obvious he was referring to Ammit.

 

“The Executioner only remembers their sins. She must forget their glories, else her role would become too great for even a goddess.” The Pharoah replied. “Her recollection of their truth leaves her once she departs this hall. And, unless I miss my guess, she will be eager to depart.”

 

“What makes you say that?” I inquired, scratching the back of my head.

 

“The expression of absolute murder on her face.” The Pharaoh pointed past my shoulder, indicating the group of figures ascending where the line of souls had been only moments ago. “She generally wears that when she’s eager to leave. Oh – and the power that binds her to this place will have told her that you’ve claimed the Throne without asking her permission. She’s going to love that.”

 

“Oh crap.” I closed my eyes, steeling myself for the inevitable shout of fury as it came.

 

“Lord Warden Dre’su’den the Ha’ri. You utter and complete moron!” Ammit’s apoplectic screech of fury parted the court of the dead like Moses in the Red Sea. Her lips were frothing with collected spittle as she struggled to form words that weren’t just a collection of incoherent growling yips. “Only you could go to a sacred site that is entirely agreed upon neutral territory safe for all Goa’uld to walk and find the single source of near lethal danger to yourself then bind yourself to it!”

 

Enlil’s open-mouthed horror was nearly as striking. He was entirely silent as he looked out at the city-scape of the necropolis, just staring. My brother looked out with him, whistling long and low as he examined what the Akkadian god was looking at. They stood outside the great hall, just beyond another transparent barrier of energy. I craned my neck hoping to see what they were looking at as Ammit rounded on me, blocking my view as she strode though the force-fields as though they weren’t there.

 

“How did you get through the force-field?” I inquired in confusion, rapping it with my knuckle just to assure myself it was still there. The shimmering corona of energy assured me that it was.

 

Ammit let out a long-suffering rumble of desperation as though cursing the universe for inflicting me upon her. “Warden, Goa’uld shields are one-way barriers. This shield was in place to prevent the judged from fleeing not to…. Warden, for the love of Apep do not tell me that you have been trapped behind this shield since Loki brought you here.”

 

“Uh…” I blushed. “Maybe.”

 

Ammit’s eye twitched as she grabbed me by the wrist and fiddled with my wrist computer, turning off the barrier of transparent energy. “Three buttons, Warden. You spent hours trapped like an utter fool because you didn’t know to press three buttons. How is it possible for you to shatter the very forces of reality in a single instant but lack even the basic understanding of technology? That at least should have been part of the genetic… ” Ammit stopped mid-rant, as though realizing the obvious. “You don’t have genetic memories from your Queen mother, do you? You’ve had to learn everything from scratch. That’s why you’re unbound by the terms. You never had them imposed on your memories. That’s why you’ve spend every waking hour in Heka’s library. You don’t have the knowledge of your mother to guide you.”

 

“Something like that.” I replied, rubbing my arm as she let go of it. “I had an unconventional childhood for a Goa’uld. I’m positive of that much.”

 

“Warden… how old are you?” Ammit asked, her expression softening. The attempt at seeming non-threatening was greatly undercut by the frothing foam on her lips. “Have you even been alive for a century yet?”

 

I didn’t reply, but my hesitation spoke volumes. Ammit’s eyes bulged. “Whore of Thoth’s Folly – you’re an infant. You can’t be more than a few decades whelped from the belly of a Jaffa! How did you even have the wherewithal to depose Heka?”

 

“I’m a fast learner.” I replied. “And he was an ass.”

 

“You have to be the single most potent Goa’uld child of all time.” Ammit whispered in befuddlement, looking from me to Anubis’ throne and back. She gasped audibly, looking at me as though for the first time. “Oh, child – what has been done to you?”

 

“I don’t know.” I replied, honestly. “I just… sat in it and it did something to me.”

 

“No child. It was already done to you if the Throne allowed you on it.” Ammit’s growl became a purr of confusion. “We will speak of this later, child. You have beholden yourself to a role I believed long dead. I will not allow you to mishandle what remains of my brother’s legacy. He was a good man before he became a monster – most are.”

 

“Ok, I don’t want to be that guy, but I really want to leave the city of terrifying corpse people.” The Russian Colonel shouted over at us from the door to the throne room. He, and the other living members of our cadre, were standing outside the doorway to the throne room. There was apparently a barrier of blue energy blocking them from entry.

 

“Can I let them in?” I looked at my wrist computer, considering its vast array of symbols.

 

Ammit shook her head. “This is a place for the dead. Only those touched by death may enter else they join them.”

 

“Are… we dead?” I asked, considering the previous state of disembowelment I’d been in.

 

“Partially.” Ammit agreed. “That barrier isn’t a forcefield… it’s the space between. We are gods of death. We walk the space between.”

 

“That’s going to take a longer explanation than we have time for right now, isn’t it?” I sighed, trying to do the math in my head for how long it had been since Koschei took the archive. “Liver Spots has probably already legged it to Buyan, hasn’t he?”

 

“Likely,” Ammit agreed, “but I have been alive for longer than most species and I have only begun to understand the role you have assumed.”

 

“I don’t suppose dragging Koschei on the express train to hell would constitute on the Job training, could it?” I joked.

 

“Warden – here I was thinking you were a fool.” Ammit snarled gleefully. “I can’t think of a better way to break in your role as Advocate. Even if you are just a child.”

 

“Are you going to keep calling me a kid forever Ammit?” I rolled my eyes as she ruffled my hair, yet again.

 

“You are tens of millennia my junior. I have teeth older than you are.” Ammit scoffed. “I don’t care if you’ve figured out dangerous toys and tricks, child, you are going to learn from your elders or I will eat you.”

 

“You’ll try.” I replied, flaring the runes on my staff as we walked to the entryway of the great hall. The court of the dead left the throne room as we did. The Pharaohs leading their people down into the lower levels of the pyramid now that there was no longer anyone to hold court.

 

“Oh yes, showing off how deadly you are. That will convince me of your maturity.” Ammit snorted as we breached the barrier of blue light and I was finally able to see what Thomas and Enlil were staring at.

 

“Oh Hell’s Bells!” I swore, catching sight of the suddenly teeming city. I had done far more than just bring the residents of the throne room back to vitality. The entire necropolis was suddenly bustling with the dead. Ghosts, shades, mummies, and zombie-like constructs of flesh and bone were wandering the city. The star well that had previously been empty was now lined with constructs of flesh and bone, amalgam-creatures of parts taken from humans and animals brought back and given life. They stood at the ready, holding bronze spears and shields. It was the sort of thing the Kemmlerites had dreamed of when they’d tried to enact the darkhallow – a kingdom of the undead.

 

“Anubis… only Anubis can resurrect this place.” Enlil whispered, looking at me. “His power was bound to it. It can’t be done by anyone else.”

 

Ammit guffawed. “The Lord Warden isn’t great at ‘can’t’ Enlil. I thought you knew that by now.”

 

Muminah fell to the ground before me, groveling utterly as she whispered out a prayer. “Blessed is the Warden, protector of souls and god of Death.”

 

“Oh get up.” I pulled Muminah to her feet and waved to the scene in front of us. “This is just…” I tried to find an explanation of what I had done that wasn’t exactly what she thought it was and came up blank. “…ok I’ll admit, even I can’t try to think of a way to contexualize this in a way that isn’t a bit much but I am not here for you to grovel. We’ve got work to do.”

 

“Of course, my Lord Warden.” Muminah replied, keeping her head bowed.

 

Not privy to the conversation the four of us were having in Goa’uld language, the Russians caught only Ammit’s tone of amusement and Enlils voice of befuddlement as they too assessed the millions of undead constructs within the necropolis.

 

“Do… do I shoot them?” Sergei looked to the Colonel and addressed him in Russian, clearly out of his element. I wasn’t sure if “them” referred to the undead, the Goa’uld, or both. I wasn’t even sure if he knew.

 

“Sure, if you want to piss them off and get us all killed.” Kincaid interjected before the Colonel had the opportunity to reply. “Undead get stronger the older the corpse is. I’m pretty sure these things have been here since before human being even had a history to record. Hell, the solution to necromantic constructs is pretty much “kill the necromancer” and I don’t even know if starry eyes even can die. So no do not shoot a God in his place of power while you’re here as his guest you moronic human hunk of Doctor’s Sausage.”

 

“You do not discipline my men. Only I discipline my men.” The Colonel interjected before rounding on Sergei and grabbing him by the front of his shirt and waving out at the collection of undead with the blade of his other hand hand. “That being said, exactly what part of today has led you to believe that bullets are going to solve this problem?”

 

“It isn’t really a problem.” I replied in Russian, closing my eyes and focusing my mind out at the collected necromantic constructs. I could feel them at the edge of my mind, just as I’d felt Sue the night of the Darkhallow. They were more complex than she was, so the subterranean city’s undead residents felt more like a chorus of voices at the back of my mind rather than the primal instincts she’d broadcast, but they were most definitely mine. “They’re friendly.”

 

“Oh good. The armies of the damned are friends.” Vallarin sighed. “You know what? As long as something isn’t trying to kill us, I’m happy.”

 

“You get used to it eventually.” I assured the Russians before flipping to English so that I could be understood by all. “Ammit. Where do we go now?”

 

“The rings are over there.” Ammit pointed at an open platform. “We can use those to board the ship. Asumming, of course, that you’ve learned how to use them without someone reminding you that you can.”

 

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you Ammit?” I sighed, walking over to the circle. I stopped as I reached it. “Wait, what? That’s way too big!”

 

“Warden, you didn’t think we just had one size of ring transporter, did you?” Ammit laughed. “We mass produced the standard sized ones, but the ships from before the folly had multiple technologies that have fallen out of common use. The Cyclops and Hekatonkhieres haven’t needed ships in centuries, not since they started living in the lands beyond Sun and Snow. And the hosts that needed them… they are a relic of the Folly best forgotten.”

 

“Well… everybody onboard.” I stood at the center of the circle and waited for the collected group of my allies to pool together in the circle before manipulating my wrist computer and summoning the massive rings around us. The brilliant light of the rings enveloped us, projecting us up and out of the city of the dead.

 

When the brilliant light receded from view it brought back to my attention a striking moment from the roll call for the White Council. Some of the more interesting reasons that Wizards hadn’t been in attendance included “He got Real married,” “Living under the Polar Icecaps,” and a couple of other absurd and uniquely wizardly reasons for not attending a meeting of the Council. It was, however, the previously absurd concept of “Pyramid Sitting” that stood out in my mind as the light dissolved around us and the Pyramid sitter in question was before us.

 

Anastasia Luccio, Commander of the Wardens of the White Council, had apparently personally taken on the task of Guarding the ship left behind by Ammit. And I, the clearly inhuman “Lord Warden” of the Goa’uld, had just showed up to the pyramid she was guarding with a cadre of armed men and monsters.

 

And – of freaking course – she wasn’t alone.


	30. Chapter 30

Wizards are, as a rule, packrats. Some are messier packrats than others but as a pure product of necessity and longevity, Wizards will amass a prodigious array of possessions wherever they live. Books, potion-making ingredients, and various trophies are relatively standard but we all seek to like hoarding stuff for some reason. This is exacerbated exponentially in places where multiple practitioners operate simultaneously. The Pyramid we now stood inside of had all the hallmarks of being a waystation for wizards. Alongside perfectly preserved hieroglyphs and statues that had likely been there since the fall of the Goa’uld empire were vast bookshelves and curio cabinets full of everything from porcelain teapots to a Tickle-me-Elmo and even an oil-portrait of Benjamin Franklin as mummy in front of the Eiffel Tower for some reason. I guess mummified parisian parodies of political figures were the 18th century White Council equivalent to the “Hang in there Kitty” poster.

 

It was a well worn and well loved space into which generations of Wizards had placed belongings in order to make the solitary watch within it more tolerable. As a consequence, it meant that there were no shortage of objects to shatter when the General of the White Council’s paramilitary police jumped away from me, rolling over a pile of maps covered in words that I vaguely recalled as being Spanish to put distance between us.

 

“Dio!” Shouted the head Warden, kicking the aforementioned table and scattering the maps as she unsheathed her magical blade. “Che cazzo è?”

 

Her two compatriots were on their feet in an instant, their aged bodies moving with a purpose entirely belied by their seeming frailty. I recognized them immediately, not that either of them could ever be mistaken for anyone but who they were. The Merlin’s long flowing sliver hair and beard was the storybook picture of who one thought of both when one thought “Wizard” and “Merlin.” LaFortier, by contrast was an emaciated - almost skeletal man. His tailored suit hung on his slight frame as though it had been sown for the man his bulging eyes belonged to, rather than the pallid waif of a man who actually wore it.

 

Langtry’s eyes roamed across our group in moments, assessing us with piercing clarity. I wasn’t sure if it was just experience, or if he’d actually opened his Wizard’s sight, but he visibly recoiled at the sight of me.

 

He was frightened.

 

Arthur Langtry was scared of me?

 

I was surprised to come face to face Arthur Langtry - Merlin of the White Council of Wizard. Arthur was rattled enough to actually show it. The Merlin, it would seem, had considered this place impregnable. Which, as I caught sight of the glowing hieroglyphs on the walls, immediately made sense. They pyramid had been constructed by Ammit. It was covered in every anti-vampire ward I’d ever seen in the great Library of Nekheb, with a whole mess of new wards added by the White Council what little real-estate the Goa’uld hadn’t already marked up. Next to Edinburgh, this had to be about the safest place on Earth to plot against the Vampires.

 

Hell’s bells, I’d brought my brother to a place specifically warded against vampires!

 

My head whipped around to him, horrified that my only family might have been reduced to a puddle or burned to cinders by the wards the second we’d teleported up to the surface. But he seemed to be more or less in perfect health. He’d apparently had the good sense to pilfer a balaclava from one of the Russians who had the good sense to stop wearing his cold-weather gear in the Giza heat. He was still shirtless and obviously a White Court Vampire to anyone who was even remotely in the know, but the wards didn’t seem to have been triggered by his presence.

 

Ammit followed my gaze, and chuckled - muttering in Goa’uld. “Figures. I’ll explain later, Warden.”

 

The rumbling growl of the Goa’uld language seemed to break the Wizards out of their stunned silence. It was the Merlin who spoke first, pointing at me with a long rod of white birch as he said, “Who are you?”

 

They were both still dressed in the formal council regalia they’d worn the day Wizard LaFortier had tried to sell me to the Red Court to sue for peace - the prick. I’d presumed that the Senior Council would have lingered in Chicago to see if I got myself killed trying to show that I was really one of the good guys. Contrary to popular opinion, it would seem that I was not - in point of fact - the center of the universe. I suppose, in retrospect, it was foolish of me to assume that the senior leadership of the White Council would have just sit on their thumbs and waited around while we were in the middle of a war.

 

No, the Senior Council got where they were precisely because they took action when it was necessary. And there was no shortage of action to be taken.

 

Especially considering the bombshell that had been dropped on them by the Winter Court. Darth Dresden, the black sheep of the Wizarding world who’d broken the laws of hospitality and forced a war with the Vampires, had managed to escape Wizard LaFortier’s attempt to sell him back to the Vampires. And by tying himself to the vital resource of the Ways through Winter, no less.

 

That was the sort of thing one discussed with the head of one’s military. Three of the deadliest magic users on the planet - if not in the entire galaxy, and I decided to show up with a war party.

 

Any single Wizard from the White Council was an army just by themselves. And that was just the things they could do to you while they were alive. Supposedly a Senior Council member’s death curse was the sort of thing that brought to mind words like “ground zero” and “Hiroshima.” But as dangerous as these people were, they were Wizards. And I knew exactly the sort of thing one could say to mess with a wizard.

 

The Senior Council consisted of the oldest, wisest, and most well informed Wizards on the planet Earth. But that still meant that they were only a couple of hundred years old. I’d been trained by a Wizard old enough to have joined the Senior Council - if he hadn’t just been too busy being ornery to bother - and while all Wizards kept secrets, I felt reasonably confident he would have brought up something about the dangers of Alien Space Gods if he’d known the particulars about them. It was a gamble to assume they didn’t understand the ring teleporters, but when it came right down to it - old people not understanding alien technology was something I was willing to bet my life on.

 

And while I was already gambling with my life, why not go for broke on a winning hand? Because Luccio not having already stabbed me was one hell of a tell.

 

Warden Luccio hadn’t immediately recognized the Colonel and his significance to Goa’uld being on Earth. If Warden Luccio had even the remote inkling that we had been involved in the fall of Archangel, she would have tried to kill me on the spot. Wizard Pietrovich had said that capturing me wasn’t a White Council matter. That strongly implied to me that he hadn’t asked permission to capture me. I was pretty damn sure the Merlin would never have knowingly consented to involve a mortal military in Council matters to the overt degree that Pietrovich and his Brute Squad had allowed the Colonel and his men to operate. It would open the doors for the Red Court to use their mortal servitors in kind.

 

Pietrovich was off the reservation. God bless that stupid, arrogant son of a bitch.

 

Putting on the best “annoyed creature of the night” face I could manage, I pointed down at the exposed circle and put some extra vinegar into just how metallic and otherworldly I could make my voice sound as made the red lightning in my eye-sockets dance across the billowing starscapes within them as I spoke in English. Raising my ruby handheld foci to match his wand I laughed with my most ominous chuckle and said, “You first. Who summoned us?”

 

Ammit made an abrupt exhalation of air through her nose that would only have registered as laughter to someone who’d spent extensive time around the Unas. The muscles on her neck twitched as she flashed her eyes. “We do not appreciate being summoned as playthings for lesser beings.”

 

“I ask you again, creature. Name yourself.” The Merlin’s voice didn’t have the metallic growl of the Goa’uld, but the steely nature of his conviction overpowered any previous inklings of fear.

 

“I’m the Mailman. I brought packages from Santa - who the heck does it look like I am?” I waved at my compatriots. “I’m the God of Magic, and these are my lovely assistants. We’re here to show just how quickly we can disappear.”

 

“Thrice I ask and done creature. Who are you?” Arthur spoke, his voice pulsing with an issuance of magical power to it. It was the meagerest force of will, but potent.

 

If you ask one of the fae - or someone beholden to their geas - a question three times, they are obligated to answer you. They may not give you the answer you want, but they must answer you truly. It had never occured to me previously that having the power of Winter coursing through my veins when I’d conducted the Ritual of Necromantic Ascension might have actually affected the process, but as the Merlin’s magic hit me I found myself compelled to speak.

 

When the true answer I gave him was not “Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden” but “I am Lord High Warden Dre’su’den the Ha’ri, God of Magic, Sovereign of Madness, Advocate of the Dead, Keeper of the Lost, Prince of Thieves, Taker of Knowledge, Teller of Stories, Patron of Heroes, Ruler of Nekheb, and Kicker of your Ass if you ever force me to answer another question,” it came as only a marginal comfort given the suddenly overwhelming rush of adrenaline that the Mantle sent into my system. My heart thundered in my ears as every single fiber in my body told me to kick the Merlin’s ass up past his earlobes for have the audacity to demand things of me. That the mantle felt it was necessary to punctuate that statement by making the ground beneath my feet corsucate with pulsing red lightning didn’t exactly diffuse the situation.

 

“Ammit,” The goddess introduced herself, towering over the wizard’s as she moved to the right of me, protecting my flank. “Eater of Sin. You might recognize me from the carvings on the wall.”

 

“Enlil.” The Babylonian God stood to my left and made himself as visible as possible, puffing out his chest and stroking his bejeweled beard. “Lord of the Elements and maker of Kings.”

 

“I’m a man with a Gun.” Colonel Zhukov interjected, raising the weapon in question as he titled his head to the mercenaries. “These are my merry men - also with guns. They shoot bullets, da?”

 

The Russians seemed extremely relieved to be back in a situation that seemed likely to be the sort of thing that could be resolved with a judicious application of kinetic force. They’d fallen back to hide behind pillars and low walls almost the instant we’d come out of the beam of light, taking cover on instinct.

 

“Hellhound?” Warden Luccio interjected, introducing the silent Mercenary who’d been standing next to my brother as he moved away from us, keeping us all in view as me moved out of the immediate line of fire. “You are with… these creatures?”

 

“They’re convenient.” The mercenary replied diffidently. “And necessary for the moment. ”

 

“You made a bargain with the Old Gods?” LaFortier sounded sick.

 

“I’ve got no issues with monsters, so long as they keep their side of the deal.” Kincaid shrugged. “Necessary evil. Ammit owes the kid a favor. Her pantheon came for the ride.”

 

“He was insistent that I come.” I intoned spitefully. “It was hardly a choice at all.”

 

“I’m sure.” Luccio replied doubtfully, her eyes flicking to the extremely naked priestess Muminah as she struck up a fighter’s pose in front of Thomas, putting herself between him and the apparent danger.

 

My brother exasperatedly tried to move her to the side only to shift in surprise as she darted away from his arm, quick as an eel, putting herself back in front of him. “Lady, I can look out for myself!”

 

Muminah ignored him entirely, keeping her gaze fixed on Wizard LaFortier as she shepherded my brother behind a pillar, in spite of his repeated protestations that she need not bother. The Wizard replied her regard with equal focus. To his extreme credit, he kept his eyes above her neck-line as he observed her ornate hieroglyphs. “Those tattoos look like the mark of Heka.”

 

“Mark of the Lord Warden, now. We’re under new management.” I replied firmly. “Once again. Who summoned us from the depths of the Underworld? And why?”

 

“We did not summon thee… Lord Warden.” He spoke the last word almost like a question rather than a direct statement. The other Wizards answered it immediately.

 

“Not I.” Spoke LaFortier. “I do not know how one even would summon mortals.”

 

“I am not the architect of… whatever this is.” Luccio spoke. Her gaze still flicked over to the Hellhound as though he were the key to unlocking whatever confusion she currently felt.

 

“You see, Lord Warden - we have not sought to summon or bind you or your companions. We are still complaint with the Terms the White Council agreed to. The entrance to your crypt is still safe from those who would seek to defile it.” The Merlin was doing a remarkably good job of not seeming as utterly perplexed as he had to be in this situation. Good on him for not running away, come to think of it. If even one half remembered god had invited themselves into the summoning circle in my basement apartment back in Chicago then started angrily demanding why I’d summoned them I’d have probably fled. Heck, I’d probably have fled Ammit just on principle once I realized there was a ten foot tall painting of her on a wall showing her slaughtering several hundred Red Court Vampires.

 

The painter had really managed to capture the spirit of a vampire’s dying screams of agony.

 

“Well someone brought me here against my will. I did not choose to come to this planet. If not you, then who?” I did my best to immortalize the expression of consternation on the Merlin’s face as his mind clearly ran through the list of every unpleasant creature that might have both the grudge against the White Council and the wherewithal to forcibly summon an angry god in their holdfast without him knowing about it. I leaned on my staff, waiting for the inevitable.

 

The problem with Wizards is that, broadly speaking, we have a tendency to assume we already know everything because we try to constantly put ourselves in situations where that is true. Part of the whole Wizarding gig is spending enough time in the off season studying dusty tomes and brewing potions so that when it comes around to game time we’ve already figured out an unbeatable strategy to victory. But if someone is prepping for baseball and you show up with a cricket-bat, they’ll confidently swing high while the ball goes low.

 

And there was pretty much only one group who had a reliable reason to know about this Pyramid other than the people standing in it. The Merlin’s brow quirked as the obvious thought hit him. “Wizard Luccio - would the Lords of Outer Night have been able to summon these creatures against their will?”

 

“I don’t know how. This place is the most guarded location on Earth against their power.” Luccio continued to observe the hellhound as she spoke. “And the only other individual who would have both access and opportunity isn’t… did she?”

 

“The Archive didn’t bring them.” Kincaid asserted. “But they are here for her. Koschei got her while Archangel fell. We passed through the Underworld, ended up here. ”

 

“The Archive was at Archangel?” The Merlin seemingly lost interest in me entirely as he turned to Kincaid. “Was she was our guest?”

 

Oh - oh - OH! That was something that I hadn’t even considered. The Archive had been invited to Archangel by Wizard Petrovic at the time of her kidnapping and was, under the rules of the Unseelie Accords, to be protected by the White Council as their guest. In allowing her to be kidnapped, the White Council had failed to provide the most basic rites of hospitality. That carried obligation with a capital “O.”

 

“Lower your weapons, all of you. These are not our enemies.” I commanded, lowering the arm with the ruby foci on my palm. I scowled at the Colonel and his men as they continued to aim their weapons. “Colonel, I do not like repeating myself.”

 

The Colonel lowered his weapon slightly, enough to not be directly threatening the life of possibly the most powerful Wizard in the White Council, and his men mirrored his action in response. “Wizard Merlin - I believe that we have been put at odds by forces beyond ourselves. I have no intention of allowing myself to become a puppet for the Lords of Outer Night, do you?”

 

“I do not recall having provided my title to you Lord Warden.” The Merlin did not lower his wand, but neither did he try to attack me.

 

“You did hear that I was the god of magic right?” I replied incredulously, gesturing to my ornate staff. “Did you think I wasn’t going to keep a close watch on Wizards?”

 

The Merlin arched his brow, shooting a glance to LaFortier. “A truce - perhaps? An agreement not to initiate violence between each other for the duration of our conversation.”

 

“A Truce.” I agreed. “I will hold my people to it, on my magic I swear it.”

 

The Merlin lowered his wand. “You’ll pardon our skittishness, Lord Warden. But what few of your kind still walk the Earth hold old grudges about the last war. Why are you here.”

 

“My Ship. We want it.” Ammit spoke in broken English. “This place is held in trust so that my belongings might be safely kept from the Vampires. You keep it from them, not us. I will have it.”

 

“That… item, is one of significant peril to those it is used against.” The Merlin intoned firmly. “There are implications to be considered in allowing it to operate.”

 

“More than the fallout from allowing the Archive to fall to Koschei?” Kincaid's words were razor-fine. “Because I assure you, Koschei won't be quiet about who he stole her from. It will be known that the White Council cannot protect its allies and will hinder their agents.”

 

“If you have not summoned us and do not intend to keep us, then you must stop trying to prevent us from saving the Scribe of Thoth.” I intoned, using the Goa’uld term for the Archive to seem more Egyptian. “We will take Ammit’s chariot and continue on our quest. Kincaid will incur no further obligations to your people for failing to provide protection against Koschei.”

 

“We cannot permit such an action. To do so would invite War with… the Red Court.” The actual meaning of Merlin’s reflexive denial seemed to catch up with him as he was speaking and he paused, considering the paining on the wall. “It would… infuriate the Red King… to allow his most hated adversaries to a boon. Remind him that we can use the letter of the Law as a weapon as effectively as they have done already.”

 

“Wizard Merlin.” LaFortier hissed, his eyes bulging at the implied suggestion of the Merlin’s statement. “We have already insulted the Red Court enough for them to start a war with us. Another insult would be -”

 

“Entirely appropriate.” The Merlin interjected, considering my cadre. “I make no objections to your plan to ransom for peace but the Red King has been operating too freely as of late. Whoever summoned these creatures did so with the intention of inflicting damage upon us. The very existence of this temple is a secret known to precious few outside the Council. Perhaps the re-introduction of their predator into the wild is not without cause.”

 

“Wizard Merlin I strongly caution you against making any deals with the exiled gods.” Wizard Luccio intoned firmly. “These are the same gods with whom we allied with that same King to exile in the first place.”

 

“I am not allying with anyone.” The Merlin’s eyes were twinkling with spiteful mirth. “I’m not making any deals. I am merely postponing the conclusion of a conversation until a later date when I am less pressed for time.”

 

“One can hardly be blamed for delaying the end of a conversation until a time more practical for having an in-depth discussion.” I replied, amused at the Merlin’s wilful subversion of the Unseelie Accords. It was technically legal for both parties to extend a truce the duration of a conversation as long or as short as both parties decided they were “still talking.” Anyone who wanted to complain that the Merlin wasn’t trading blows with me would have to take it up with Mab. I wasn’t a signatory as far as the Merlin knew, but there were provisions that applied to non-signatories which would apply.

 

By contrast, he could decide that our business was concluded and hex me into next week whenever he felt so inclined. Given that the War with the White Council had been started over a breach of the Accords, the Red Court couldn’t protest the Merlin’s decision to obey them without giving him an avenue to protest their Casus Beli. More of a route than even he knew, given that I was actually a member of the White Council and thus bound by the Accords wholesale.

 

The Merlin was using me, but he was being extremely upfront about it. I held out my hand, “Langtry, the faster we put this conversation on hold - the faster I get off this planet full of things and people who want me dead. If you don't terribly mind?”

 

“Not at all.” Langtry returned my grip, grinning wolfishly. “A pleasure to meet you Warden. But please understand that our conversation is not in perpetuity - Should you linger after completing your task… I would find my entire organization in the mood to avoid talking entirely.”

 

“Try me Saruman and I'll bounce you off the walls of this pyramid till you can taste the rainbow.” The Merlin blinked. No appreciation for the classics, I guess. “Ammit, get the kids in the car. We're going on a road trip.”

 

Ammit grumbled about ungrateful children as she upturned a bookshelf full of expensive looking china and kicked over a dresser made from amber to expose a standard sized ring transporter. My compatriots all ascended in a beams of light till it was only Ammit, Kincaid and I left.

 

The three of us entered the circle. Before I activated the teleporter for the last time, however, I looked up at the three of them as a wild thought occurred to me. I'd already done irreparable damage to the timeline by nuking Russia. I might as well do some “good” damage as well. Who knows, nuking a country hadn't ended reality.

 

What damage could I do with a sentence?

 

I might even make my past life easier, who knows?

 

I looked up at Warden Luccio and flashed her a dazzling grin as I said, “Before I forget to mention it, the Summer Lady is going to kill all life on Earth on the Solstice. Just thought you should know.”

 

The three Wizard’s horrified demands for more information disappeared with the sudden flash of light.


	31. Chapter 31

“Enlil.” Ammit growled as we materialized within the Goa'uld spaceship, grabbing me by the collar of my armor and dragging me bodily behind her as she bum rushed towards the cargo-compartment at the back of the transport. “Get us in the air.”

 

“Where am I heading?” The bearded babylonian looked up at her from the pilot’s seat as he went through the pre-flight checks. The Colonel settled into the co-pilot seat. He clearly had no idea what anything did, but sitting in the chair apparently gave the impression he was in control. Kincaid rolled his eyes and just strapped himself into a chair.

 

“I don’t care. Just turn on the cloak and make sure the weapons still work.” She replied as I found myself frog-marched by the massive saurian being into the cargo hold. She pointed to my brother as she fung me bodily through the door. “You - come with me.”

 

“I don’t have to - “ My brother protested briefly before her eyes flashed with murderous fury and she made a horrific snarling noise over his anemic attempt to assert himself.

 

“In. The. Hold.” Her eye twitched as she pointed to Muminah. “None of them enter.”

 

“Yes, Lady Ammit.” Muminah replied meekly, putting herself between Ammit, the door, and a cockpit full of people who wanted no part in whatever was infuriating the Demon Goddess. Precisely none of the Russians seemed in any hurry in interrupt her currently murderous mood.

 

My brother scurried over to me, for lack of a more apparent source of safety as Ammit punched the activator to the cargo-bay doors hissing and spitting furiously under her breath in the Goa’uld language. She crossed the room in three long strides, manipulating a crystal on the wall to open a long panel covered in hieroglyphs. It moved aside, exposing a vast array of bottles and phials containing various colors and hues of liquids. She grabbed a bowl and started decanting various liquids into it, jabbing at it with long crystals that sparked and sputtered into them as she did so.

 

“Uh - Ammit… what are we doing here?” I asked her cautiously in the Goa’uld language, doing my able best not to seem alarmed to Thomas.

 

“We are not doing anything. I am brewing a potion to prevent an addlebrained child from ending reality because he hasn’t gone through the centuries of training and study that one ought to go through before trying to make themselves a god.” Ammit snarled shattering an empty jar on the ground after emptying its contents into the now smoking purple morass in the bowl. “I am saving the fool boy who just blurted out the same impossible truths he used buy Winter’s armies as an idle joke because he was enough of a blithering moron to make himself a god of chaos.”

 

She set the potion on fire, turning to face me as a pillar of green flame illuminated her from behind as she bellowed at me in incandescent fury. “The powers with which you meddle are not to be played with idly. You cannot use them as you would play with mortal wizardry. You are a conceptual being. The more you create an image of yourself, the more that image will warp you to suit its own ends - even at the cost of your life and the lives of your subjects.”

 

“What I said was true. Aurora will try to destroy the world.” I replied firmly. “Allowing them to know that will motivate them to act against it.”

 

“They are Hok’tar warden, they will act in whatever way most pleased them. If simply telling them the best way to act motivated them to operate in a reasonable manner we would still be sovereign over this world.” She quenched the smoldering flames on the liquid with a metal lid, counted to three, and then revealed a bubbling orange sludge. She lifted the bowl of sludge and held it out in front of Thomas, addressing him in English. “Spit.”

 

“I’m not giving you bodily fluid.” Thomas insisted, gagging at the odor of it.

 

“Spit or I will take. Save the Lord Warden.” Ammit snarled, her unpracticed English even more broken than normal in her anger.

 

“Ammit, is this safe?” I asked in Goa’uld. “I need him whole.”

 

“It is harmless to the Phage but necessary.” Ammit replied in Goa’uld before swapping back to English. “Spit! Now!”

 

I nodded to Thomas as he looked at me questioningly. He clutched his silver pentacle, muttering, “Damn it mom,” before spitting in the bowl. The liquid dissolved as he did so, the congealed orange melting into pure silver. Ammit sniffed it, then held out the bowl to me. “Drink.”

 

“Ammit, what the hell is that?” I held up my hand in front of the bowl.

 

“Drink or I will cut off your head and pour it down your throat.” Ammit grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and forced the bowl to my lips. I gagged on the foul tasting brew, but swallowed most of it in spite of myself.

 

It gave me the same dull warmth as when I’d taken pain killers for broken bones, a dull sense of disconnection from my own body. Not just my body either, the insistend well of power that I’d been feeling since I used it on the bus felt far away. Not so far that I couldn’t use it, but the compelling need of it was at a distance. It would be a lie to say my mind felt clearer but it felt more like me than it had since I attacked the forces of Summer with the storm much more “Harry” than “Ha'ri.”

 

Harry was not thrilled that Ha'ri had casually referenced the fact that Harry had broken the sixth Law of Magic to exactly the worst people on earth to joke about it to. Apparently casual invitations for war were what my mante thought of as a fun way to end a meeting.

 

God I hoped it was the mantle to blame. It was getting hard to separate my own desires from the will of my godhood.

 

Ammit snapped her fingers on either side of my face, gauging my reactions as I flinched from her talons. “Good - it hasn’t damaged you too much.”

 

“Damaged me?” I said in a voice that wasn’t at all girlish or panicked. Really, Thomas was giggling at nothing. I swear.

 

“Warden, you are an unfinished product. I don’t remember everything about the ritual, but I remember for damn sure that it took multiple rounds of it to actually create a stable god.” She scratched her chin pensively. “You’re… clay that hasn’t been put into the fire yet. You look like a jug, you may even be painted, but if you start trying to store wine and hold a party you’re going to end up as a messy pile of clay.”

 

“But - I can feel the power in me.” I clutched my hand, looking at the ruby circle in my gauntlet. “I am a god.”

 

“You’re a start, Warden.” Ammit shook her head. “You have worshippers. You have purpose. You have the urges. But if you try to actually channel that the urges will become more than you and all you will be is a broken mess of something. The universe is full of deadly jabbering powerful messes that might once have been gods. We filled our prisons with them as often as we captured the Adversary.”

 

“How… how many times would I have to conduct the ritual to be whole?” I asked, the prospect of doing it even once more to terrible to even consider.

 

“Hundreds of times, thousands, perhaps even millions.” Ammit shrugged. “The Terms stole that knowledge from me, but the others purged cities to become what they were. I was fed with the unworthy for millennia, even before the ritual.”

 

I flinched. It was sometimes hard to remember just how many people Ammit had killed. It was easier to think of her as my companion than as the predator she was. She was a mass murderer by any possible definition of the word. How many millions had she killed? Had they all deserved it?

 

How many were dying in my name without me ever having met them as I tried to excuse away the behavior of a primordial Demon God? I didn’t like knowing that I was getting people killed for me.

 

“I can’t do it again, Ammit.” I shook my head, reverting to English reflexively in a moment of vulnerability. “I shouldn’t have done it the first time. A monster was trying to kill me. Consuming him and taking his power was the only way I could survive. I was dying.”

 

I don’t know why I was trusting her with who I’d sacrificed to become a god, not when I’d been keeping the knowledge from her for so long. But I had to talk about it with someone. I had to - she needed to understand that the ritual was horrible. It was evil and I wouldn’t do it again. “I was dying. I was weak. I had a moment - just a moment - and I took it. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t know I would do it.”

 

I realized I was weeping when I stopped being able to see. “He was evil. He was terrible. But I took him. I devoured him utterly.”

 

I wiped the tears from my eyes as I sniffed, feeling foolish for having allowed myself to seem weak. Hell’s Bells - I was feeling survivor's guilt for the death of an utter monster. “I don’t want someone to die just so I can consume them.”

 

“You’re not a bad person.” Thomas put his hand on my shoulder gripping my pauldron firmly as he glared at Ammit. “And you do not have to be the monster others tell you that you must be.”

 

Ammit rolled her eyes, muttering in Goa’uld. “The Vampire doesn’t even know what kind of monster you are let alone what the consequences of what he’s implying might be.”

 

“If memory serves - neither do you.” I jibed back in the Goa’uld tongue, wiping the tears from the corner of my eyes. I patted Thomas’ hand, replying to him with a simple - “Thank you Thomas.”

 

“I think I might understand why Mom wanted you to watch over me.” Thomas spoke calmly, swallowing as he did so. “I - I don’t want to kill anyone either. I never - they didn’t tell me what I was. Not the first time.”

 

I nodded. White Court Vampires’ first feeding was always fatal. In their twisted attempt at parenting, they declined to even tell their children what they were until after they’d fed upon their first victim. They wouldn’t know they were monsters until it was already out of their hands to find another path.

 

“Thomas - you are more than what your family wants you to be.” I replied. “You can be who Justine knows that you are.”

 

Thomas pulled his hand away at the woman’s name. “She’’s just food.”

 

“Thomas.” I sighed, the argument ages old for me even if it was a fresh concept for my brother.

 

“She can’t be more than food, Warden.” Thomas looked at Ammit. “Are we done? Can I go?”

 

“Top button.” Ammit pointed to the controls to the right of the door and waited for him to leave. She considered the creature as he departed. “Warden. Why am I with you?”

 

“Ammit?” I looked at the goddess in confusion.

 

“Why am I with you? You don’t approve of my hunger. You hate the pantheons. You’ve done everything in your power to erase the Goa’uld. Why am I with you?” Ammit replied calmly. “You trust me as a General in your armies. You let me plan your campaigns. Never once have you asked me for any proof of loyalty. Why?”

 

“You’ve been straight with me, Ammit. You’ve never lied to me. You do what I ask. You help my people.” The Eater of Sin was as close to a “friend” as one could expect from a supernatural predator. Sure she was a monster, but she was my monster.

 

“Then why are lying to me at every chance you get?” The Goddess exhaled long and slow. “Oh - I know you’ve told me the truth, or as much of if as you feel safe sharing with me. But at a certain point, Warden, even you have to realize that I’m tolerating your eccentricity. “

 

“Ammit - there are things I can’t tell you. There are things too dangerous for you to know.” I winced at the genuine hurt in her voice. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I just can’t tell you.”

 

“You can’t tell your Generals, but you can tell the Winter Queen.” Ammit replied mockingly. “Warden, the only reason we’re on this hell world is because Mab told Titania what you told her. I am not entirely devoid of the ability to follow the course of events unfolding around me.”

 

“I have to be selective in what I share.” I replied firmly.

 

“If you had elected to share with us that the Summer Lady was going to try to kill all life on the First World, we could have made preparations. I could have found weapons - mustered armies. We could have planned to bring tracking devices with us so that Ul’tak could bring a fleet to rescue us and siege Buyan.” The goddess gestured to her potion making kit. “We know things you do not. The only way for you to exploit that knowledge requires that you share information with us.”

 

“Ammit, even the most basic information could be catastrophic.” I hated hurting her feelings, but there was nothing for it. “I can’t be incautious with what I know.”

 

Ammit’s eyes shone with the deadly threat of her truth-sight. “Warden… are you from the future?”

 

I froze, terrified to speak. “Ammit… I can’t answer that.”

 

“No wonder!” Ammit groaned. “Blood of Apep, you’re worried that you’re going to cause a paradox that will prevent you from ever coming back in time! Are you from the past or the future? No - never mind, don’t answer that. I can’t know.”

 

She looked at the closed door in horror. “Warden - no-one can know about this. None of your followers. Paradox is of limited threat to the events that brought you to this point, but the knowledge of how to travel the river of time is a jealousy sought secret of Eden from the Folly. The System Lords would unite against us as surely as they united against my brother’s madness after the Terms.”

 

“Ammit - why, why are you protecting me?” I blinked in confusion, looking at the giant saurian creature.

 

“Warden, my brother’s throne chooses who it allows to sit upon it. It is not in the habit of selecting those who are unworthy.” She got a far off look in her eye, her voice tainted with sorrow. “Anubis wasn’t able to even touch his own creation - not at the end.”

 

She shook her head, exhaling loudly as she waggled her saurian jowls. Her eyes flashed as though she were angry to have indulged in nostalgia. “You are the Advocate. I am the Executioner. I am not waiting another five millennia to find your replacement.”

 

“I - I’m sorry for not trusting you Ammit.” I replied, considering it for only half a moment before insisting. “But there is no way in hell I’m telling Enlil.”

 

“Blood of Apep - no!” Ammit scoffed at the idea of it. “He’d jump out of the moving transport just to be away from the implication he might have tacitly aligned himself with a Chronomancer.”

 

“Why are the Goa’uld afraid of Chronomancy?” I furrowed my brow. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a rational fear - but I’ve never heard it vocalized.”

 

“The Fisherman and the Scholar mostly.” Ammit scratched at her chin with a Talon. “I never met them myself. Never had cause - even at the end they seemed content to leave me be.”

 

“Ah.” That made sense, suppose. Goa’uld history was littered with apocryphal references to a group of vengeful spirits or demons that were apparently disjointed from time. Killing them seemed to only come at a horrific personal cost and they always - and I mean always - seemed to come back to life. I hadn’t figured out what specific kind of creatures they were, but their primary demonic motivators were the “Fisherman and the Scholar.”

 

The only fact that seemed to be a certainty about them was that they hunted the Goa’uld at the height of their power. God only knew if I’d find out enough about them before they came for me. With my luck they were already looking to kill me.

 

I was lost in that troubling thought when Ammit leaned in close to me, sniffing me twice before saying. “You weren’t lying to to the Vampire when you said that you hadn’t intended to conduct the ritual.”

 

“No.” I answered honestly, looking into her eyes as they glowed a violent viridian.

 

“You honestly don’t want power, do you?” Ammit replied incredulously, her voice boiling with disappointed mirth. “All that bullshit about using power responsibly and being defined by right and righteous action. You’re not just manipulating your followers. You believe that shit.”

 

“I do.” I nodded.

 

Ammit devolved into uproarious laughter as she slumped against the wall. She pinched her nose between her talons, hiccuping with joy. “Oh - oh this is too good. The System Lords are going to spend years looking for a plot that doesn’t exist. They can’t expose a lie that isn’t there.”

 

“I'm not trying to make worshippers.” I insisted.

 

“Ra would have liked you, Warden.” Ammit stood up from the wall, walked over to me and tousled my hair. “It is a pity he never met you.”

 

“I've never actually heard anyone talk about him.” It was odd. He'd been the unquestioned hegemonic leader of the Goauld for longer than human history but I knew as little about him as I knew about the Folly.

 

“He was a good man. Or, he wanted to be, I suppose.” Ammit lamented, her voice somber. “The King of Gods does not often have the luxury of kindness, even if he might wish it. You'll understand as you grow into being a god.”

 

“I don't want to be a god.” I replied softly, almost ashamed to say it aloud. “I never asked for any of it. I just want to be a good man.”

 

“Warden,” Ammit laughed. “Nobody would ever actually want to be a god if they understood the truth of it. That's just sanity.”

 

“I kinda got the vibe that most Goa'uld wanted to be gods.”

 

“Nobody has ever accused my people of being sane.”


	32. Chapter 32

I raised my mask before I left the cargo compartment to conceal the tears that I knew had yet to dry, blinking as the holographic interface overlaid itself over my vision. I wasn’t precisely sure how it managed to do that now that I no longer had eyeballs - I didn’t have corneas upon which to overlay the images. Either my mantle was forcing the light to obey my new physical limitations or Heka had designed this armor with the physical body of an ascended Goa’uld in mind. The armor was old tech, made back when Heka had actually been Heka. Like most old Goa’uld stuff it was about as annoying as it was useful.

 

Goa’uld devices came in two varieties. The stuff they made for themselves and the ritual objects intended to be used by servitors. The latter was, broadly speaking, idiot proof. It was designed to be so simple and durable that it could be handed to a primitive warrior without any comprehension of written language and still be used effectively. Anyone with two brain cells and an understanding of “point this at the other guy” can use a staff weapon with marginal efficacy.

 

Stuff that was made by the Goa’uld and for the Goa’uld, however? You’ve got a better chance of catching the wind with your bare hands than understanding what possesses them to design it that way. It is almost always impractical, absurd, inefficient, and dangerous - and almost invariably custom made. Given their propensity for using technology and ritual magic almost interchangeably, I don’t even know how someone would magic could even begin to replicate it and I can’t figure out how someone with magic would even be able to try.

 

The genetic memories of the Goa’uld made them savants, knowledgeable in just about anything you could hope to know. It also meant that their version of “user friendly” required an array of PHDs to understand how to use the damn thing once you have access to it. While I understood the words that the device displayed, I was still trying to get used to the rapid flow of information that was projected at all times. Mostly, I suspected it was my lack of formal schooling rather than anything else. Warnings about atmospheric conditions and chemical pathogens were extremely precise, giving specific metrics and measures of the world around me that didn’t translate to much of anything even though I understood the words.

 

I had figured out that warnings in red were generally bad. So that was at least partially useful. The armor generally provided me with warnings about imminent physical danger about three seconds after any such warnings could actually be acted upon. Bob was pretty sure that was less a design flaw and more my “lemming like sense of self-preservation” and “propensity to be places sane people aren’t.”

 

I mention this because it was at roughly this moment that a display I hadn’t previously seen appeared in my field of view as I exited the cargo hold. A little red box shimmering in the center of my field of view and obscuring my vision as a loud chirruping klaxon repeated “unknown contact.”

 

I tripped over my own feet, grabbing Ammit’s arm to steady myself as I swore angrily. “This useless piece of crap.”

 

“You doing ok there Warden?” The Eater of Sin snorted. “Enlil’s flying isn’t that bad.”

 

“My flying is impeccable.” Enlil groused. “It’s this damn relic that’s the problem. There is so much dust in the systems that I don’t even know how it cleared the doors to the Hangar.”

 

“Well, do the weapons and cloak work?” Ammit inquired, observing me idly as I flipped open my wrist device and wrestled with the controls, trying to figure out which of the icons manipulated the cursor in my HUD.

 

“Of course they don’t work properly. This is a space ship, not a Jaffa weapon. Proper maintenance of the older model hulls was a daily concern, not a matter of generations.” Enlil groused, flipping several switches as he spoke - earning another blaring red “system inoperable” warning in my vision as he did so. He turned to the Colonel and switched to his mangled English as he pointed to something in front of the Russian. “Press red button. Triangle.”

 

The Colonel compiled nervously, pressing the triangular button as though worried it might explode the craft if he did so incautiously. Justifiably so, considering the bright sparks that erupted from a wall as he did so. The Colonel said a number of extremely uncharatable, but probably justified, things about Goa’uld technology - pairing them with physically improbable suggestions relating to Enlil’s mother before gritting his teeth and asking, “Did that work?”

 

“Obviously not.” Enlil replied in English, his voice uncharacteristically cheeky as he addressed the slightly singed soldier. “Press again.”

 

“Will that work?” Growled the Colonel.

 

“Probably not.” The Babylonian god’s eyes flashed with malevolent mirth at his former torturer. “ Try anyway.”

 

“Enough Enlil.” I commanded in the Goa’uld tongue as I finally found the while cursor and made it dance across my vision. “What is the the status of the ship?”

 

As I selected the “System Inoperable” warning, it became immediately apparent what was going on. The older model armor could apparently communicate remotely with the ancient ship. Complicated explanations of precisely how busted up the ship was flitted across my vision as Enlil provided plain language explanations for the PHDese that was bouncing around my field of view. “Everything is broken that’s our status. We have a hyperdrive, basic atmospherics, and that’s about it. There are no shields and no outgoing teleporter - the cloaking device will only work for a few minutes once I turn it on and I’m not sure if it will ever turn on after that.”

 

“Blood of Apep.” Ammit groused. “Do the guns work?”

 

“It’s a Scarab class gunship. Obviously the guns work. The rest of this ship could be a smoldering hulk and the guns would still work.” The man’s thick braided beard clicked as the interwoven jewelry shook, agitated by obvious mirth at the very suggestion. “The Scarab was basically just a way for Ptah to make a weapons system fly. This isn’t so much an armed transport as a gun that Ptah decided to build a ship around.”

 

“Ptah loves his guns. Between that and the armor I’m not too worried about what is on the planet. ” Ammit manipulated a control panel on the wall, summoning a chair from the ceiling. It descended to a comfortable height for a man to sit in it, as a readout indicating the current charge and functionality of the attached weapon appeared in the bottom left of my HUD next to an icon of a horned scarab.

 

As I looked from the undersized chair to the extremely oversized Demoness, I wondered how long it had been since she’d been forced to come to terms with the host she’d lost. Hosts were a sore topic for me. As someone who’d been nearly forced into the hell of having my body taken away from me, I couldn’t imagine a worse hell. But there wasn’t really a way for me to take away the hosts from the Goa’uld without taking a thinking being a casting them into an eternity of paralytic limitation from what they’d been.

 

In the belly of every single Jaffa on Nekheb was a Goa’uld who would one day want a host - Hosts that I wouldn’t be able to give without unmaking a person. And for every Goa’uld who wanted a host there would be a Jaffa who now needed an infant Goa’uld to survive. The sincretic species demanded entirely immortal practices for their very survival. I didn’t lack for willing hosts, but I knew they didn’t understand their situation enough to properly consent to having been forced into that position.

 

It wasn’t a problem for which I’d been able to find a solution. It wasn’t one that I was even sure a solution for existed. Ugh, why had Ammit and Enlil been so damn human? I could have just done away with the Goa’uld or slain them after leaving their Jaffa wombs if I hadn’t spent so much time with the all too human monsters.

 

It would have been so much easier if I wasn’t one of them. At the risk of devolving into another bout of melancholy, I decided to focus on the ship. “Was this your personal ship?”

 

“Used to be.” Ammit ran her hand over the chair wistfully. “Suppose it’s yours now Warden. It can’t be mine seeing as how I signed the treaty saying I wouldn’t use the weapons Ra prohibited.”

 

She paused in her examination of the chair, looking at one of the icons on its arm. She tapped it twice with a long talon, squinting at a display that hadn’t been angled to be viewed easily by people not sitting in the chair. “Odd, nobody should have… Oh, no wonder - Heka. I’d forgotten about Heka.”

 

“He seemed a bit memorable to be forgotten.” I replied dryly, double tapping the remaining red warning icon with my cursor. I grew sick to my stomach as a rapid-fire series of warning and indications sped past my vision. Whatever it was trying to tell me, the mask’s HUD hadn’t been designed to properly display it. It was showing the information to me as raw data, incomprehensible in piecemeal. I leaned heavily on my staff as I grew dizzy from the shifting colors, grasping Muminah’s hand as she reached out to me.

 

Ammit looked back at me from the display on the chair, smiling her wide, crocodilian grin. “Kid - you try to see this that way, you’re going to go insane. We’ve got computers to read that stuff.”

 

“What did the lunatic do this time?” Enlil inquired, craning his neck around the seat to get a good look at me.

 

“He tried to read the sensor feed as base code in read time.” Ammit scoffed. “All the sensor readings at once.”

 

“Do we actually have sensor readings?” The Akkadian arched his brow, looking back at the console in front of him. “I can only get basic instrumentation to work.”

 

“Safety measure from the court of Ra. The weapons and sensors only work if a control computer with the proper identification codes is onboard. Even if the rebels could get a ship, it wouldn’t shoot or be able to leave the atmosphere.” Ammit waved in my direction. “The Warden’s computer counts.”

 

“I’d love to be flying with more than my eyes to guide me.” Enlil groused, tapping the crystalline dome next to him. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

 

“Uh, sure.” I walked up to the dome and put my hand on protrusion of black stone that had clearly been made to fit the hand devices of the Goa’uld. It wasn’t necessarily the way to activate the sensors but it seemed likely. Even for mundane tasks the Goa’uld favored placing the “on” switch in whatever way most clearly said “this is mine, worship me.”

 

To the surprise of nobody who has ever dealt with the Goa’uld, it worked. With sizzling whirr of activating holographic crystals, the dome shimmered and displayed an image of the Scarab class transport zipping over the Egyptian desert.

 

Egypt has a lot of desert. I know that doesn’t exactly come as a wild, out-there concept to anyone who has heard of the place but even people who know that most of Egypt is a desert don’t understand what that means. Well over ninety percent of the country is desert. If you’re a living, breathing human person and you’re not living in Cairo you’d better be living along the nile. Because if you’re not, then you’re either a Bedouin or probably soon to be dead of exposure. There is a whole lot of nothing in Egypt.

 

So, when you see something in a place where there is generally nothing, it’s significant. And when you have 2300 cubits wide by 2200 cubits long flying at an altitude of 70,000 feet - that’s a whole lot of something where nothing ought to be. I was still a bit hazy on the Cubit to foot conversion rate but 50 by 300 had been considered sufficient to house “two of every animal” by some sources.

 

“That can’t be right.” Enlil muttered to himself as he fiddled with the sensor parametrics, refining specifically what the device was looking at. The crystalline holostructure focused on the massive object hanging in the sky, moving towards our position at an alarming rate as we moved eastwards. I noticed that in spite of his assurances that it couldn’t be true, he accelerated the Scarab and descended closer to the dunes. “The sensors must be malfunctioning.”

 

“They’re not.” Ammit disagreed, looking at the Russians pensively. “Warden, which of them is the best shot?”

 

“Kincaid.” I replied immediately.

 

“The scowling one who is bound to the Scribe?” Ammit pointed to the mercenary, switching to English when I nodded. “First Prime of Scribe. Get in turret.”

 

“Turret?” Kincaid looked at the chair speculatively. “Lady, I haven’t got a clue how to operate that thing.”

 

“The chair shoots. It needs eyes and a mind.” Ammit looked worriedly at the massive red shape on the sensor as it matched, and more troublingly surpassed, the Scarab’s increase in velocity. The sensor distortion was diminishing as it closed in on us, the power blocking it from view decreasing with proximity. “We will need best shot. Just think as you shoot with weapon. It will reply in kind. Unless you prefer to rely on aim of Russians.”

 

Kincaid was across the room and strapped into the chair before the last “s” of “Russians” left her lips. A helmet marked with a golden scarab slid down over his head and bright lights flickered into his eyes, shimmering with the same blue-green luminescence of my own HUD. He let out a long whistle, apparently impressed.

 

“This is just… cool.” He pivoted the seat as he looked left and right, looking through the ship’s hull as though it weren’t there. “Oh - hell, uh… there are a lot of… things coming at us.”

 

“It will shoot what you wish it to shoot.” Ammit fiddled with the controls. “I have enabled it to work for non-Goa’uld.”

 

“What am I shooting, exactly?” Kincaid’s eyes were focused ahead of him, looking past Ammit and to whatever it was that the ship was projecting into his eyes.

 

“Everything that isn’t us.” The demoness replied worriedly. “We have no shields so even a single one of them will be enough to kill us.”

 

“What the hell is that?” My brother asked, looking at the massive shape that appeared on the sensors. “It’s freaking huge!”

 

“That, I suspect, is Buyan.” Ammit replied in English to my brother, her voice deeply worried as the sensors showed us a gigantic snowflake-like island flying through the sky. It was still blurry but I could see angular protrusions built around six central spokes that jutted out upwards and downwards like crystals of ice.

 

“The Island fortress of Koschei.” Hissed one of the Russian soldiers, looking at the other Soldiers incredulously. “It’s real!”

 

“Was the actual Koschei kidnapping people and shoving them in bags not sufficient to convince you of that?” Inquired my brother, doing his best to inject bitter sarcasm into a language that wasn’t his own and making a half-assed job of it for lack of practice.

 

“Isn’t it supposed to be in Russia?” I groaned as there was a whistling whirr of something bright and white that soared past the scarab and exploded against the dunes in a small mushroom cloud of flame and magical power that set my teeth on end. Stars and Stones - someone had created a supernaturally charged cluster bomb.

 

“That’s the thing about Buyan. It moves.” Ammit replied dryly as Kincaid opened fire. The Scarab’s weapon arrays fired bursts of plasma so fast they sounded like a blender, sending bursts of plasma as fast as Kincaid could recognize that he ought to be firing at a target. Not that there were a lack of targets. A swarm of similar glowing projectiles were moving from the belly of Buyan, a whirling tornado of supernaturally powered missiles heading for a tiny, unshielded transport.

 

“Enlil, aim for the Nile.” Ammit kneeled next to the chair, opening up the back of it and pulling out several crystals from it. “I’m going to remove the safety control crystals to see if I can get us a couple more shots.”

 

“Won’t that make the guns explode?” Enlil said between furious Babylonian swear words and barked orders for the Colonel to manipulate controls on his side of the craft. Colonel Zhukov was a surprisingly apt co-pilot, following the god’s orders unquestioningly in light of the apparent danger.

 

“Not before the Gate Builder weapons do.” Ammit twisted a purple crystal and the blender like hum of the Scarab’s weapons reached a fever pitch. The high-pitched whine of the emitters barely matched the flurry of energy bolts that showed on the sensors, plasma pulses merely a stop-gap between us and death. “Warden, that crap you pulled with the mortal Airship. Can you pull that out of your ass again?”

 

“I can open a Way.” I replied, confused at Ammit’s desire to enter the Nevernever. “Is there a specific place you had in mind?”

 

“We ruled this place for thousands of years.” Ammit smiled as the Nile came into view. “We know it, on this side and where it borders. It is ours Warden. It is ours.”

 

“Was yours.” Elil corrected, even as he dived the ship towards the rivers of the Nile.

 

“They won’t try to murder us.” Ammit replied, before amending her statement. “Probably. They probably won’t try to murder us.”

 

“Probably is a hell of a lot better than this.” The transport shook as a projectile whipped by us, too close to the hull for comfort. I placed my hand atop the sensor dome, focusing my mind on the open air in front of the transport right above the surface of the Nile as I said, “Aparturum!”

 

Hopefully the Sky Beetle would fair better in the Nevernever than the Russian helicopter had managed.

 

What?

 

Even I get lucky sometimes.


	33. Chapter 33

As a rule I don’t do drugs. Potion making occasionally requires the use of substances that aren’t strictly copasetic by the standards of the DEA but I’m extremely wary of anything that takes away agency from my own mind. A Wizard’s level of skill paired with anything that impairs his judgement is pretty much the stuff of “bad idea 101.” At best you start feeling like you can use your powers to accomplish things you shouldn’t and at worst there are creatures who will take advantage of your open state of mind to do nasty things to it.

 

This isn’t to say that I’m perfect. I drank beer occasionally - sometimes to excess. But the hard stuff that made you see things that weren’t there? I got enough in the way of nasty looking things in my day job. The place Ammit had directed us to was an extremely pointed example of why I felt no impulse to induce hallucinations. I’ve been in strange pockets of the Nevernever… this… this was something else entirely. It was like H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft had a baby let it be raised by Salvidor Dali Hieronymus Bosch.

 

The Sky Beetle skimmed along a blood red river, beneath an endless sky of golden sands. Enlil pitched and whirred the Goa’uld aircraft as crocodile like constructs of gemstones and starlight burst from the crimson waters to snap at the sky beetle. Mouths large enough to snap up a Megalodon yawed open around our plucky little craft, titanic muscles too slow the capture the vehicle.

 

And those, god help me, were the small ones.

 

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that shooting isn’t going to do much more than annoy those things.” Kincaid intoned from his seat, a mixed air of disappointment and wariness in his voice. “I’m pretty sure you could fit the Twin Towers in that thing’s mouth.”

 

“Shoot anyway!” Enlil hissed in English, yanking the controls back and forth as he dodged a tongue the size of a chicago neighborhood.

 

“Will it do anything?” Kincaid shouted over the sudden whirr of discharging plasma.

 

“It will make me feel better.” Enlil growled in the tongue of the Goa’uld, yanking on his braided beard.

 

Elil let loose a long string of Akkadian swear words, implying things about the crocodile’s sexual proclivities that seemed wholly irrelevant to our plight as he pitched upward and spun the craft around. We re-oriented one hundred and eighty degrees so that the sands seemed like the ground as we dove away from the crocodile constructs. The white-gold sands sizzled and spat like molten lava, ensorcelled heat shimmering up from to distort our field of view into a mire of distorted light.

 

“Whore sons of Sobek - did that moron have no sense of scale?” Enlil groused as he pointed to the console in front of the Russian colonel. He directed the Colonel to manipulate a series of buttons and keys in broken English - interspersing his directions with more Akkadian curses.

 

“Sobek wasn’t worth much in the real world, but he was the protector of the River of Life.” Ammit cooed at the sight of the crystalline crocodiles as I might have at a newborn puppy. “Look at that - things of beauty.”

 

“They’re thoughtless monsters that do nothing but devour anything that enters the River uninvited.” Enlil groused, leveling out the craft as close to the dunes as he dared to fly. As we approached the ground, gigantic shapes emerged on the horizon like the serrated teeth of some gigantic creature’s jaw - arrayed along the dunes in a gruesome grin. Crystalline pyramids capped with golden crests, larger than the tallest mountain I’d ever seen.

 

As we got close enough skim along the base of one of the pyramids it became apparent that they were in fact arranged along the dislocated jaw of some long deceased crocodile that had leapt into the endless sand skies to die in the molten-hot dunes.

 

“Where the hell are we?” Thomas asked, narrowing his eyes against the glare coming up from the ground. “And what are they?”

 

“The souls of the dead.” Muminah’s eyes welled with tears as she looked out at the mass suffering. “They are the dead who have not found judgement. Those who weren’t buried or guided properly into the afterlife. Those from the War of the First World.”

 

“Unworthy.” Ammit supplied in mangled English. “And lost. Ones without path to judgement or who feared it and fled.”

 

Pitiful creatures that might once have been men and beasts writhed about the sands, mad with agony and desperation. They tore at each other’s flesh, stealing limbs and organs to devour them in a futile attempt. They devoured them in a futile effort to make their mangled bodies whole. Massive creatures, twisted and burned in near-parody of human form, shambled the dunes. The flesh titans opened wide mouths and gaping maws to devour the smaller beings too entranced within their own petty squabbles of flesh to see their incoming doom.

 

The beings tried to climb over each other to reach our transport, ripping and clawing at each other to gain altitude. But it was futile - the creatures at the bottom dragged women, men, and what I desperately hoped weren’t children, down to the ground as fast as they tried to reach up to grab us.

 

I caught glimpses of malevolent creatures of the Nevernever interspersed between the angry human charnel mass, beings that had been hungry or foolish enough to enter the hell of unending dunes. Ogres and what might have once been lesser dragons, battled the lost spirits in a futile effort to gain the upper hand against the tide of tortured flesh - now they were little more than gored husks of the creatures they had once been, feeding on the dead just to survive.

 

“This is hell.” Spoke the Colonel in Russian, averting his eyes at the malformed chaos below us. “Hell is real and we are in it.”

 

“I… I didn’t think that there was a hell in the Egyptian religion.” Thomas spoke in a voice of entirely justified panic.

 

“There isn’t. Bad men are unmade” Ammit replied. “The guilty punish each other to avoid oblivion. They run. They hide. They feed to grow bigger. But all end. All end.”

 

The sands seemed to be boiling as men and women churned up from it, crawling up through the searing granules. Screaming, they were always screaming. Some stayed whole people for long enough to realize the horror they’d emerged into before something older and crueler than they to fall upon them and rip them to charnel.

 

“Blood of Apep.” Enlil snarled as he spun our craft upward to avoid the walls of the nearest pyramid as the crystalline walls opened up like a flowering shrub. The walls shattered in a wide crescent of razor sharp vines and flowering petals that rained down on the human hordes like a rain of spears. The twisted souls of the damned were pinned to the ground by long skewers, pinning them to the boiling sands. They continued to claw at each other and chew at the flesh of their fellows as the long skewers were grabbed in huge fistfuls.

 

Or, I suppose, pawfuls.

 

The pyramids, as it transpired, contained titanic creatures with the head of a hawk and the body of a lion. Their piercing screeches sounded like choirs of trumpets, brassy and bold. They culled the spirits by the hundreds, throwing them into huge linen sacks before tying off the mass of souls and disappearing back within the confines of their pyramids. The shattered lilly of crystal melted upwards, forcing itself back into the shape of a perfect pyramid and firing a beam of golden light into the River. The beam created a swirling tide pool of magical power that screamed with the horrified voices of the mangled souls as they went on to god alone knew where.

 

“Not that this shortcut through hell isn’t fascinating, but aren’t we going in the opposite direction from Buyan.” The Mercenary intoned between firing pot-shots at anything that seemed able to even make a half-hearted attempt at flight. “Seems a bit counter intuitive.”

 

“Buyan would destroy this craft. Would destroy a fleet.” Ammit scoffed at the suggestion. “No - we need the chariot or we will die.”

 

“Ammit.” I rested my hand on the taller woman’s scaled shoulder. “Do we have a destination in mind or are we just going to wander through Hell seeing the sights?”

 

“Look for the whitest group of people you can find.” Ammit pointed at a mass of bodies intertwined into a huge ball of people, interconnected as they gnawed on each other’s limbs and clawed at their privates. Their flesh was incongruously pink by comparison to the swarthy majority. They were too mangled for me to get a precise idea of their ethnic origins, but definitely European. “Those will do.”

 

I groaned, realizing Ammit’s plan. I addressed her in Goa’uld to avoid unnecessarily panicking Thomas. “We’re going to have to actually go to the surface, aren’t we?”

 

“Obviously. They crawled up through the Dunes, so we will have to travel in the opposite direction.” Ammit replied as though it were the most simple thing one could possibly do. “The hull should be sufficiently armored to survive the impact.”

 

“Should be?” Enlil yelped, tugging on his beard in frustration even as he accelerated downwards. “I’m not loving ‘should be’ as an assessment for our survival.”

 

“Just let me open a Way.” I raised my staff, only for Ammit to grab my arm.

 

“We need to hit the ground. If the Warden opens a way in the air we’ll just end up out in the galaxy somewhere - probably somewhere unpleasant.” Given that she was currently suggesting a jaunt down through the twisted masses of the damned, I was disinclined to discover a place she deemed “unpleasant.”

 

“That is the ground. That is the ground! That is the ground!” The Colonel screamed in horror as Enlil pitched the craft towards the ground. The Russian officer pulled his sidearm out, pointing it at Enlil and demanding that the Goa’uld restore the proper altitude. Enlil didn’t even look up from piloting the craft as he hip-fired a zat-gun at the Russian soldier. I would swear that he giggled at the man’s convulsions as he dove the craft towards the ground.

 

“No, no, no, no, no!” My brother screeched in increasing pitch and volume as we plummeted through the twisted pink bodies. The buzz-whirr of the ships guns failed to keep up with the sudden preponderance of targets. The sheer kinetic force of the ship liquified the bodies as we moved through their screaming mass, piercing the molten sands and continuing down through the earth. Every once in a while we came face-to-face with an terrified soul trying to claw its way into the afterlife before it became a red smear on the craft’s viewscreen.

 

My armor displayed a frenetic series of confused warnings as the system failed to connect the inputs it was receiving with any laws of physics or logic. The hull damage warning bothered me, but we never reached marker which would delineate a loss of spaceworthyness. Ptah really had loved armor.

 

The ship rumbled as we drove it through the swirling sands, before piercing the bright-hot earth and emerging into total darkness, the molten sands dissolving into ectoplasm as we broke the barrier between the real world and the Nevernever.

 

And then the world was on fire.

 

I would later come to find out that the Russian permafrost covers massive deposits of gas, both in a traditional petrochemical like oil and other gasses like methane. Hypothetically, if a well intentioned Wizard was to have emerged within one of those pockets in a superheated spacecraft, he would hardly be to blame for those pockets of gas igniting. Practically speaking, what I’m saying is that for the second time in a week I managed to blow up a quite substantial portion of Russia - forcibly expelling the Sky Beetle into the air out of a two hundred and sixty foot wide hole plunging down into a fire that had enough propellant to keep it going effectively forever.

 

But really, who was using that part of Siberia anyway?

 

“Where are we?” Muminah asked nervously.

 

“Russia.” I replied looking at the map on my HUD, repeating the word to the terrified Russian soldiers. “We’re in Russia.”

 

The three of them were white-knuckle clutching the seatbelts on their chairs, eyes wide and seemingly too terrified to move. It wasn’t exactly military bearing but in their defense, I had literally taken them to hell and back. I tapped the crystalline display of the viewscreen, manipulating it so that it showed a map. “We’re in Russia. It looks like Siberia. I need one of you to tell me where we are in relation to Verkhoyansk.”

 

The young major who’d asked me about my Empire - Vallarin I think he was called - was the first to regain his wits, unfasten himself and walk over to me cautiously. He was approaching me with a degree of reverence and fear that he’d not exercised previously. In fairness, he’d seen quite a few things to give him a healthy dose of reality with regards to his relative ability to harm me. “I - I think we’re in the Yamal Peninsula…”

 

“Of course, the End of the Earth is where one goes to reach Hell. Why wouldn’t it be?” Jibed the sarcastic voice of the mustachioed Lieutenant Marchenko as he helped Major Kirensky let go of his seat belts. The glum faced Major was stony faced, staring out into the middle distance as he tried to say a prayer that he clearly only remembered half the words to.

 

“You’re taking them shooting the Colonel disturbingly well.” Kincaid remarked, standing up from the gunner’s chair, pointing to the man slumped in the copilot’s chair.

 

“It’s not lethal.” Vallarin shrugged. “And we’re not in hell any more. I’m finding it difficult to argue with a man who stopped someone from shooting the pilot of a craft I’m inside.

 

“That … looked pretty darn lethal.” Replied my brother, poking the man with his finger and causing an agonized groan. “Hell, it looked like you’d want it to be.”

 

“One shot stuns. Two shots kill. Three shots disintegrates.” Marchenko spoke as he helped Kirensky to his feet. “It’s a stupid weapon but I’m hardly in a position to argue its utility.”

 

“We’re… eh… twenty five hundred kilometers from our destination.” Vallarin traced his finger along the map, drawing a picture of where we needed to go. “Da, with this thing? We can be there in minutes.”

 

“Ammit, would you mind?” Enlil gestured to the controls. “I want a word with the Warden before we get there.”

 

“No, Enlil. That’s fine.” Ammit swapped places with the Babylonian god, shaking the Colonel till he woke with a start. She leaned in close to the Russian and said in English. “You try to shoot. I eat hand. Understand?”

 

“I understand.” Replied the Colonel, wincing at the agony from the Zat weapon’s after effects as his muscles spasmed out of control.

 

The Akkadian god handed me his Zat weapon, giving it to me hilt first. I took it, arching a brow in confusion behind my mask as I asked. “Any particular reason you’re disarming yourself?”

 

“Warden, that is my weapon. It is capable of inflicting horrific damage upon mortal beings.” He looked at me with eyes marked with thick lines of painted makeup. “We are not heading to fight a mortal being. In this fight I am useless to you.”

 

“Enlil, you’re not useless…” I began to disagree with him only for him to cut me off with a raised finger.

 

“Yes, Warden. I am. I am not tattooed with wards or a queen of war. I am not a mortal warrior who has bound themselves to an impossible quest. If you bring me to Buyan I am as good as dead.”

 

I shook my head. “Enlil, this isn’t a suicide mission. I have every intention of bringing everyone home.”

 

Ammit scoffed. “Yeah - good luck with that Warden.”

 

“This was your idea.” I hissed in reply.

 

“And I know that it’s pretty much a suicide run.” Ammit scoffed. “Koschei was alive before the Folly and nobody managed to take him out. Best case, we free the Archive and only most of us die.”

 

Enlil jumped in, building off Ammit’s pessimism. “Warden, as it stands right now your entire Empire relies upon the three of us to run. If all of us die or are captured, we’ve doomed your subjects to slavery and death. Best case scenario Apophis conquers us. Then only your children are guaranteed to die. The rest just probably languish in torture and reeducation. I am useless to your fight against Koschei, let me take this craft and administrate. Let me do you actual good.”

 

“You don’t think we’re coming back.” I stated, terrified that I hadn’t phrased it as a question.

 

“You? Ammit? Perhaps - you’re both talented at defeating enemies stronger than you are.” Enlil smiled sadly. “Me? I’ve lived this long because I’ve understood my limits. Anyone less than a god won’t walk away from buyan… and I am not as much of a god as I would prefer to be.”

 

I wanted to be angry at Enlil for abandoning me. I wanted to punch him in his smug face for turning away from the fight against Koschei. But he was right - this was a guy who used mordite as his weapon of choice. Survival was far from guaranteed and - even though he was a prick who wanted slaves - he was more useful to me on Nekheb helping Bob run the day to day admin than he would be to me as a corpse.

 

“Fine.” I agreed, looking at the zat weapon in my hand. “Once you’ve dropped us off you can go back to Nekheb on one condition.”

 

“Name it.” Enlil raised a heavily manicured brow.

 

I raised the weapon, pointed it at my unwitting target, and fired. His back had been to me, so it wasn’t difficult to hit him even with his enhanced reflexes. He slumped over, falling bonelessly to the ground. I didn’t love hurting him - but I didn’t have time to argue the semantics of what “was” and “wasn’t” his fight.

 

“Take the Vampire back to Chicago.” I leaned down, holding my hand device over my brother to check his pulse. I wasn’t worried that I’d killed him. White Court Vampires were made of siffer stuff than people were - which was why there was a chance that it wouldn’t take.

 

I lifted my brother up, carrying him to the cargo hold and closing the door on him. Enlil’s eyes bulged briefly, his mouth forming the word “Chicago” in bafflement before he said. “I… I don’t know the path, Lord Warden. How does one reach Chicago?”

 

“I’ll mark the map.” I replied. “But under no circumstances - none, you understand me - no matter what happens you are not to step foot in Chicago.”

 

“We just traveled the paths of the damned and it is Chicago that troubles you?” Enlil replied, in a voice that sounded as though he was reconsidering staying. He paused briefly, tugging at his beard. “Oh Apep - that will re-awaken his hunger, I’m sure of it.”

 

“Don’t be a baby.” Ammit scoffed. “It can’t break through the bulkhead. You’ll be fine.”

 

“Your choice Enlil. Take the vampire to Chicago or come to Buyan.” I shrugged. “But if I get back to Nekheb and the vampire is anything but safely in Chicago, you’ll wish I left you with the damned.”

 

Enlil groaned, “Are you sure my wife didn’t send you?”

 

“Who?”

 

“Nevermind.”


	34. Chapter 34

Enlil landed the modified Goa’uld transport ship just outside of a small cluster of cottages that didn’t show anything that registered as “human” or “near-human” on the lifesigns detector. We were far enough in the wilderness that these were likely hunting lodges or waystations used by people in the lumber industry when they traveled from the deep siberian wilderness to the relative civilization of Verkhoyansk by comparison to the untamed permafrost of Siberia. By the way, the “frost” part of “permafrost” is not just a suggestion. Even in June it was frigid.

 

Anyone who has lived through a Chicago Winter will probably believe that they have a good sense for cold. And I’ve been in some nasty Chicago Winters. The sort of weather where you don’t walk to your car without seven layers and a sherpa. So when I say that Russia is cold, Russia is freaking cold.

 

I realize that I’m not exactly breaking new ground with that one. But hell’s bells Russia is freaking capital C.O.L.D. - cold. As we left the Sky Beetle I was forced to retract my mask due to the sudden buildup of ice over my visor as the vicious gusts of wind sliced across my helmet. To my surprise, it was not met with the biting cold that one should expect from that weather but what felt almost like a gentle autumn breeze. Apparently the influence the Winter Court had over my power extended to being comfortable in Winter weather.

 

My compatriots were not similarly gifted - one in particular. I channeled fire through my staff, enough to make the runes glow and cast a small corona of heat to stop Mumina from dying of hypothermia the second she hit the ground. I hugged her close to me to avoid a potential loss of heat and did my best to ignore the very pleased noise she made as I did so.

“Thank you, Lord Warden.” Mumina purred as Ammit and the others disembarked. “I - am not worthy of such attention.”

 

“You’re not exactly dressed for sub-zero weather and I can’t have you dying in the wilderness.” I joked. I watched as the Russians and Kincaid spread out to the buildings, checking them one by one for occupants or useful items. As I looked back from their canvassing of the area, I noted that she was still shivering in spite of the heat coming from my staff. She wouldn’t complain but bare feet and permafrost did not mix. “I don’t know if you should come with us, Muminah. This is going to be dangerous and I don’t want your death on my conscience.”

 

“You are the one who tells us that it is right and righteous actions that define a man.” Muminah replied in a voice of utter conviction. “There is a child in danger. You are going to save her. That is all I need to know.”

 

I recognized that tone. I hated that tone. It was the tone and tenor that every member of the clergy adopted when they were quoting scripture back at me in an effort to use my own words as evidence for why they should be doing what they damn well pleased. I knew full well that I was a hypocrite without needing an entire class of society devoted to documenting it.

 

“This isn’t a test of faith, Muminah - this is your life.” I growled in irritation. “Koschei is old - impossibly old and dangerous. I don’t know if I will be able to take him out. Everyone who is doing this probably isn’t coming back.”

 

“Then I cannot think of a better place to die than in the service of my god.” Spoke the priestess, as though that ought to have been obvious to even the must patent dullard. She traced her fingers along the runes of my staff, flickering embers of magic dancing out and dissolving into her intricate tattoos. Orange little sparks jumped in and out of her markings, dancing from her fingers down to her toes and onto the frozen ground. “To serve you even to my last breath? It is my greatest wish.”

 

Right - she was a zealot. “Not dying for the cause” probably wasn’t my best pitch. But if she was going to do the whole “Hail Ha’ri” thing, then maybe I could use that to my advantage. “The as your god, I am ordering you back on that transport.”

 

“It is the duty of every man and woman to use their mind and heart to tell them when they must act, even if it is in defiance of the gods themselves.” The priestess eyes twinkled mischievously as she replied. “So spoke the Lord Warden and so shall I act in the conscience of my heart.”

 

“Unbelievable…” Now she chose not to listen to me by listening to me. I just couldn’t win.

 

I thought about the Zat gun I’d used to subdue Thomas. Only for a moment though, it was an empty plan even in my own head. Muminah was a girl. It might be a stupid, regressive, and retrograde part of me but I just couldn’t bring myself to hurt a girl. Yes, I knew it was dumb. Yes, it had caused me more troubles than I cared to think about, but I still just couldn’t do it. Girls were special and beautiful. Men just shouldn’t hit them. They most definitely shouldn’t shoot them with ray guns.

 

It was a rule.

 

And rules didn’t always have to make sense.

 

I lifted her chin so that she looked up at my face. “Muminah, you don’t have to prove anything to me or to anyone else. I believe that you’re a good person.”

 

Her eyes got a bit misty as she choked on her reply. “I know. That’s why I can’t leave, Lord Warden. Good people don’t leave when they can do the right thing. It’s what you would do.”

 

She might as well have slugged me. This woman had literally walked barefoot into hell and she still wanted to keep going, just because there was a child who needed her. Stars and Stones - these people were willing to throw their lives away for a worthy cause just because they believed its what I would do in their place. I couldn’t even find fault in her logic. It’s literally what I was doing. And given the sorts of creatures I’d fought outside my weight class when I’d been a P.I. - who was I to judge her for wanting to take a potshot at the geriatric of doom?

 

“Fine - but you don’t die.” I spoke in a voice of utter conviction. “You hear me - not today. You’re not allowed to die.”

 

“Don’t suppose you’d care to extend that one to the rest of us, Warden?” Ammit intoned in a voice of dry amusement. “Or is it just your pets that have a mandatory lifespan?”

 

“They’re people, not pets - Ammit.” I replied to the deamoness as she lifted a half-frozen axe from a stump next to a pile of chopped wood. It looked pathetically small in her hand as she swung it in a coupe bored swipes before embedding it back in the stump. The stump cracked in half as she let go.

 

“What else do you want me to call food you won’t let me eat?” Ammit held up her oversized crystaline foci, channeling enough energy through it to cast a beam out light out before her to illuminate the side of the building. “Odd, this place is well maintained for somewhere that has been abandoned.”

 

“You could tell them that.” I gestured at the military men as they continued their sweep of the area. Not that there was much conviction in my voice. I didn’t especially like either Kincaid or the Russians when it came down to it. “Save them some time.”

 

“If they’re not willing to believe a combat class threat detection system on a Scarab Class transport from the height of the War of the First World then I doubt that my nose is going to be the determining factor in convincing them of the error of their ways.” She sniffed the air deeply, inhaling the breeze. “There haven’t been humans here in days. Plenty of creatures, but no Tau’ri for miles.”

 

“Then let's get out of the cold.” I exaggeratedly made an effort to show discomfort that I didn’t really feel and frog marched Muminah into the largest cabin. I wasn’t overly surprised when I found that the cabin didn’t have any apparent locking mechanism. This far in the back country and people were more worried about making shelter accessible than they would be about burglars.

 

The inside of the cabin looked like the Russian Fess Parker movie knockoff what with the log walls, piles of fur and an iron stove. There was a mix of furniture from different styles and eras, mixed together in a mish-mosh pattern that seemed to have valued comfort and durability over appearance. It all looked distinctly Soviet, though someone had decided to spruce up the drab mass produced kitchcet set by using bright pastel colors to paint flowers over a blue background the wooden chairs and table.

 

A haphazard pile of board games with such thrilling titles as “Chemical Warfare,” “Reds and Whites,” “Circular Race,” and “For Healthy Living” briefly reminded me how lucky I’d been to grow up in America - even if Monopoly had taken forever to finish. The previous occupants seemed to agree with my assessment of the board games, electing instead to play with a particularly well-worn chess set. It had seen better days, to be sure. It looked like the family dog had had his way with the pieces at some point. There wasn’t a single one of them without a tooth mark. The people who’d been here before us had apparently left in the middle of a chess match just before Black could manage to kick White’s ass. Two moves from checkmate by my reckoning.

 

What kind of a sore loser ended a game that early?

 

I walked over to the wardrobe next to the stack of furs and opened it. I ignored the thick wool sweater and pants, not feeling inclined to fight the pointless battle of convincing her that it really was ok to wear wool, choosing instead to grab a tolstoy shirt and embroidered pants made of linen. I shoved them into Muminah’s arms before grabbing a long fur-coat and fur-lined leather boots on from the closet.

 

“Lord Warden - I don’t know if... “ I flashed my eyes angrily, silencing her.

 

“This clothing follows the arbitrary rules of the clergy. You can, and you damn well will, wear it.” I snarled, earning an amused chortle from Ammit as she sliced open a tin of canned beef with a talon and started feeding herself large hunks of it.

 

“No.. Lord Warden, I can wear it.” She looked guiltily at the cabin around us. “But… we’re stealing this clothing from whoever owns this cabin. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. Stealing is wrong.”

 

Lord Almighty save me from my own doctrine. I pulled a gemstone out of one of the compartments at my waist and left it on the kitchen table. “We’re not stealing. We’re commandeering.”

 

“At the cost of a decent sized city, apparently.” Ammit pointed to the gem with a beef coated talon. “We really need to discuss exchange rates at some point Warden. You fundamentally don’t seem to understand wealth.”

 

“I use it to make problems go away.” I considered exchanging the large stone for one of the smaller ones I’d brought with me, but opted not to. I had entire vaults full of stones even larger than the one I’d used as payment. I could afford to be generous.

 

“People who use wealth to get rid of problems generally run out of wealth before they run out of problems, Warden.” Ammit opened a second tin of beef as I pulled out a second coat and put it over my armor. “Don’t use a tool as a solution.”

 

I cinched up the fasteners on my fur coat, pulling the hood up and over my head as I looked back in the closet pensively. “Definitely not as a solution for you - it would seem.”

 

“Excuse me?” Ammit replied, half offended, as she downed the can in a meaty gulp.

 

“For your coat I mean.” I gestured at the contents of the wardrobe. “They’re not sizing this stuff for you.”

 

“I have no need of a coat.” Ammit waved off the very suggestion, opening up the pantry in search of more tinned meat. She rummaged through the cans, pulling out a can of pineapple and giving it a speculative look. She sniffed it twice, opened it with a talon and gagged at the taste. “That is foul.”

 

“People you eat but pineapple is too much for you?” I inquired, rummaging through the thick pile of fur. No, they were all too small to be of any use. “And you do need a disguise. This is Earth. Nobody has seen an Unas in thousands of years. I don’t want to have some Russian farmer shooting at you because he doesn’t know better.”

 

“Mortal weapons are hardly a concern for either of us.” Ammit discarded the pineapple in the sink and removed a tin of tuna. “And I’m a carnivore. I eat meat.”

 

“Muminah isn’t bulletproof.” I grinned wolfishly as my eyes fell upon a bear pelt that someone in the back bedroom had been in the process of sewing up with the intention of turning it into taxidermy. It wasn’t a coat per-se but if I tied it off with a couple of the other pelts… it might work as a passable disguise. “And it’s only till we find the Keeper.”

 

“Till the Keeper finds us, you mean.” Ammit pawed Tuna into her maw, struggling to keep the loose meat in her fingers. Bits of loose meat fell down her face and from her fingers as she licked grease from her fingers. “We are wandering into the heart of his territory.”

 

“You seem oddly calm considering that we’re wandering into an obvious trap.” I replied. “I mean, Chauncey couldn’t have broadcast “trap, I’m sending you into a trap” any harder if he’d offered the information for free.”

 

“I must admit, Warden, I’d rather believed that you took his information at face value.” Ammit arched a scaled brow. “You believe the Keeper genuinely has a chariot?”

 

“Of course he does. Chancey relies on his reputation for reliable trades. If he burns a god with false information nobody will ever trust him again.” I shrugged. “But if he uses a fair trade with a god to destroy that god he moves up a couple tiers importance in the Down Below - maybe even earns some serious favors with the Fallen. I mean, anyone who has a way to access a way to Koschei’s stronghold who has been able to keep it has to have some major mojo behind them. This guy is Mother Winter’s Kid for cripes sake. He isn’t going to tolerate someone having his spare garage door key.”

 

“Consider this a Geography lesson then, Warden.” Ammit pulled a framed map of the world from the wall and put it down on the table, gesturing for me to draw closer. “So you know the parts of the world that were our dominion correct? We ruled these parts of the world without question.”

 

She moved her talon along the equator, moving across the world and drawing her talon down south. “But we did not extend north. The native species objected to our presence.”

 

She gestured to Eastern Russia and North America, before resting a talon on Australia. “Some tried… and failed miserably.”

 

I looked up at her in surprise. “The humans repelled you? Even at the height of your power?”

 

Ammit shot me a disgusted look. “Not the Tau’ri - not even the Hok’tar, could repel us at our height. No, Warden. I mean the dominant species of this planet. The only thinking ones that evolved her without outside intervention.”

 

Our discussion was cut off by a loud snap-bang that I briefly mistook for weapons-fire before I recognized it as the ignition starting on a primitive petrol engine car. Wait? Primitive - when had I started thinking about cars as primitive? I was getting spoiled by all the Goa’uld tech to which I had easy access.

 

Then again, considering the Soviet era POS that was making the noises, “primitive” probably wasn’t the most inappropriate choice of words. I helped Ammit into the bearskin, tying it shut with several interwoven fox pelts and wrapping her head in a thick woolen balaclava. It did little to make her less intimidating, but at least she just seemed “massive and threatening” as opposed to “the most obvious alien on earth.”

 

We exited the cabin to discover Kincaid and Colonel Zhukov arguing with each other over who got to drive the hideous soviet-made van. I poked my head into the crew compartment, and found the other three Russian Soldiers piled in the rear three seats out of a potential six. Ammit leaned over me, gave a dismissive sniff at the tiny seats, and opened up rear doors to sit in the back compartment of the rear cab - slamming the door behind herself as she muttered about. “Pitiful design.”

 

I helped Muminah to fasten her seatbelt, counted to three, then walked over to the two grown men still squabbling over who gets to drive the van, addressing them in Russian. “Is there a specific reason you’re delaying our departure?”

 

“He should drive.” Kincaid affirmed, brandishing a folding map of Russia at the Colonel. “He is from this country and most familiar with the roads.”

 

“Nyet.” The Colonel Disagreed. “It is because I am familiar with how things are done in Russia that means I should be reading the map. It is foolishness not to take advantage of this.”

 

I let out a long exhalation of breath that sent a long tendril of inky black starscape out to dissipate into the frigid air . “Gentlemen. It has been a long, difficult day, for all of us. I appreciate that. But if the next words that come out of your mouths don’t lead me to believe that you’re doing something other than delaying saving The Archive - a freaking child - because you’re in a dickmeasuring contest to determine which of you gets hold your gun while the other guy is forced to drive - I swear to all that is Holy - I will set you on fire, then let Ammit eat you.”

 

The Colonel practically flew into the driver’s seat.


	35. Chapter 35

Divinity doesn’t save you from carsickness, especially in a rickety van with terrible shocks bouncing across roads that barely deserved the name. I’d conceptually always acknowledged “Siberia” as being “the place Commies sent good people to die” but I’d never quite appreciated just how rough this country really was. Even the deep woods parts of the Ozarks I’d been weren’t as dense and wild as the country all around us.

 

A fact that was made manifest when I jerked abruptly forward in my seat against the belt as the van’s well-work breaks screeched to a halt, stopping as a wolf wandered in front of us. The creature stared into the headlights, seemingly paralyzed with shock until the Colonel leaned into the horn, sticking his head out the window to shout profanities at the canine for being in his way.

 

“Damn Wolves,” The Colonel made a rude gesture at the wolf as we passed it with a lot more confidence than I felt was strictly appropriate for a wolf of that size as he moved the car back into motion. “They’ve been getting out of control since the fall of the Soviet Union.”

 

“They were out of control long before 1991. The Siberian packs have been mysteriously large since people were “relocated’ to Siberia. I’m sure the sudden increase in carnivores and scavengers was totally unrelated” Kincaid remarked as he looked down at the map. “You’re still going to need to go another five kilometers before you even see the turn. Are you sure we have enough gas?”

 

“We have half a tank of petrol. We need a fill for safety’s sake, just so that we can make the city proper without stopping, but we will be fine.” The Colonel replied. “And bullshit. Even in the times of Stalin we didn’t have wolf packs with hundreds of the awful creatures. If we used the military just to hunt them we would be well employed for the next decade.”

 

“I’m sorry, did you say hundreds of wolves?” I asked in Russian, the very concept of it mind boggling. Wolves were scary at the best of times. Your average person today doesn’t really have an adequate appreciation for what a wolf even is, let alone a pack of them. We’ve lived our lives largely away from the dangers our forefathers lived with. One hundred and seventy pounds of pure killing machine operating with even two or three of its buddies would be all but unbeatable in the dark for most people. A couple hundred? That was preposterous.

 

“Da.” The Colonel replied, looking back at me. “When my country’s previous government fell, many people who had been ordered to farm the land and stay here left. They didn’t own the land, the livestock, or the crops, the government did. They didn’t want to live here to begin with, so they saw it as no real loss to just abandon everything. Some let their flocks into the wild. It has had… consequences.”

 

“And if your government hadn’t been forcing people to farm this frozen hellscape nobody would be in a hurry to leave.” Kincaid pointed at a point ahead of us to the left. “There, that should be your turn.”

 

I jerked against my belt for a second time as the Colonel pitched the van around the turn at what could only charitably be described as “good driving.” Apparently the Russian sensibility for what constitutes safe driving was only a few steps divorced from Hanna Barbera's Wacky Racers. The rules of physics and causality that the rest of us considered in operating motor vehicles were just “polite suggestions” as far as the Colonel was suggested. I swear it was borderline automancy.

 

Ammit snarled from the rear of the van, leaning past the trio of justifiably worried Russian Soldiers to shout in Goa’uld. “Warden, get that Tau’ri lunatic to drive in something resembling sanity! If I’d wanted to die in a wreck I would have stayed with Enlil.”

 

“I agree with crocodile!” Vallarin insisted in Russian through a forced smile and gritted teeth, though he couldn’t possibly have understood what she was saying. If I were to hazard a guess, her talons on his shoulder were more pressing in his decision making. “Good idea crocodile!”

 

“Da… good idea crocodile.” Agreed Marchenko, who had a good view of Ammit’s snarling maw.

 

“Can we slow down?” I asked in Russian, as much asking for my own stomach as for anything else. “This is getting nuts.”

 

“Nyet - you don’t want to pause on these roads unless you must. These are mining areas.” Colonel Zhukov looked at me through the mirror. “Bratva likely owns most labor in the area. They do not like soldiers - we should not linger.”

 

“Bratva - the freaking Russian Mob. What, the wolves weren’t enough?” Kincaid snorted. “And I’m reasonably sure we can take some mobsters.”

 

“Excuse me for not being bulletproof.” The Colonel replied. “You are oddly comfortable with the idea of being shot”

 

“Guess I’m not a Pussy.” Kincaid joked. “They marked off a gas station another three kilometers up the road.”

 

“I don’t see it.” The Colonel replied, narrowing his eyes. “I - wait, ah! Da, I see it now. Yes, I’m sure of it. There it is. We’re going the right way, if the pump is there then. The Highway is this way.”

 

“The one to Verkhoyansk?” I asked.

 

“It is the only illusion of civilization out here. Da.” He looked down at the gas gauge as he propelled the three kilometers in what only felt like moments. “Cу́ка, if we don’t stop to get gas I don’t know if there will be another filling station before we run out. It’s here or hope the Bratva are feeling friendly.”

Our commie-wagon slowed to a stop in a lazy hamlet consisting of a gas station, a church that looked big enough to fit five people at any given time, and a combination bar and apartment building that looked able to house five times as many people as the church. Judging by the outhouses they didn’t have functioning indoor plumbing but at least they had electricity judging by the large satellite dish hanging off the front of the bar above a bright red diamond logo with a white letter “c” that held a soccer ball at its center next to the handwritten words “Go Spartak!” in Russian.

 

As the Colonel unbuckled his belt he froze, swore, and looked a Kincaid. “Uh - do any of you have currency on you? I lost my wallet on the Helicopter.”

 

The mercenary shook his head. “It was on the table in the dungeons in my pack. I didn’t have time to grab it.”

 

“I have precious gemstones.” I offered.

 

“I don’t think the gas man will accept diamonds.” Colonel Zukhov looked back at his men. “Gentlemen?”

 

“Nyet,” Replied Vallarin. “I don’t bring my wallet on black-ops… it seems… foolish. Some money, da, but not cards. And even that I lost.”

 

“I didn’t bring money.” Replied Marchenko.

 

“I hate all of you and will be taking a diamond from the porcelain man.” Kirensky pulled a wad of cash out from his wallet and passed it forward, holding his hand open expectantly. I handed him one of the smaller stones, earning an irritated grunt from Ammit at having given treasure for paper of all things.

 

The Colonel took the cash and got out of the car, walking over to the main office. He opened the door and walked inside, Kincaid following soon after. As we waited for the two of them to pay for gas, I noticed that Vallarin was looking at me hopefully.

 

I chuckled. “You’ve got more questions, don’t you?”

 

“Could I learn magic?” Vallarin asked breathlessly. “To make spells as you do?”

 

I considered the proper answer to that question. “No - not as I do. If you had the talent I would have noticed when you were re-attaching my head.”

 

“Oh... “ Replied the heartbroken man.

 

“Well, hold on.” I held up a finger. “I didn’t say you couldn’t do magic. Just not the way I do magic. Actually… I probably should teach you all this anyway.”

 

I rummaged under my chair and pulled out a toolbox. I went through it until I found a wax pencil, pulled it out and handed it to him. “Draw a circle on the floor between us.”

 

“Ok,” Sergei replied to me, nervously picking up the pencil and drawing a rough circle on the metal floor of the van. It was a bit oblong, but it was more about the “idea” of a circle.

 

“Ok, now I want you to prick the tip of your finger and think real hard about putting your will into that circle.” I waved at it.

 

“He’s not going to give up my soul or anything, is he?” Asked Kirensky.

 

“No - he’s just empowering a protective circle.” I affirmed. “Go on son. It won’t hurt you. I promise.”

 

Sergei Vallarin pricked his thumb with the tip of his knife, nervously holding out the digit to the circle and putting an effort of will into it. There was a sudden shift in the air and the small circle shimmered with magical energy. “It worked! Da, I think it worked!”

 

“Well, lets see.” I held up a finger and cast a spark out with a whispered effort of “Fuego.” The small spurt of fire, barely more than a candle-light, jumped out and dissipated against the circle.

 

“... Are you telling me that the only barrier to having a personal forcefield is blood, a pencil, and an understanding of basic geometry.” Marchenko groaned. “Because if that’s true, we gave up the Cold War way too early.”

 

“It will only work against magical energy. Anything physical will burst through it and remove any protection it offered. Protection against both mystical and physical danger is a lot more intensive.” I waved my hand through the circle, dissipating it. “It will stop a curse but won’t to anything against a bullet, a pebble, or even a grain of rice. Anything “real” can get through it.”

 

“Did not the man bring the paper with him for a purpose, Lord Warden?” Asked Muminah, pointing to a pair of irritated men walking back to the van.

 

“They did.” I replied cautiously, before realizing the obvious. I looked at the Russians. “Hey, is there a Soccer match on tonight? Spartak maybe?”

 

“That depends… what is today? It was the 18th when we went into the portal… is it still?” Inquired Marchenko.

 

“Damn it. It’s the 19th.” I groaned as I checked the timepiece on my wrist. That’s the trouble with the Nevernever. It never seems to cooperate when you were on a schedule. Koschei had already had the Archive for days now. I knew that she’d been planning on this for centuries, but even leaving her with him for moments was more than I could tolerate.

 

“Then yes. Turkey is playing Belgium and Italy is playing Sweden for the UEFA EURO 2000 match.” Marchenko replied before making an “ah-ha” noise as the Colonel poked his head in the cab.

 

“Out - all of you.” The Colonel replied. “I’m going to need you.”

 

“Worried about the Bratva Colonel?” Joked the Lieutenant.

 

“Screw the Bratva, I’m about to walk into a Siberian bar on game day and tell the mechanic to stop watching the match.” The Colonel brandished the wad of cash. “I don’t give a shit how much money you hand him, that’s begging for a bar fight. And if I’m in a bar fight I want the scary one to eat someone.”

 

He switched to english for the final sentence. Ammit’s eyes glowed in anticipation as she muttered in Goa’uld. “You might be back on my good list creature.”

 

“No eating people without my permission.” I affirmed in English before flipping back into Russian. “Seriously, you don’t want her off the wagon.”

 

“Have you met soccer hooligans? They’re as likely to bite her first.” Vallarin jibed as he disembarked, following me and Muminah as we got out of the truck. Marchenko and Kirensky took up the rear, taking positions on either side of our potential escape vehicle. Ammit gave an approving nod as she walked past them.

 

Kincaid stood next to the door of the bar, holding his weapon up and motioning for us to enter. I looked at him incredulously. “You’re seriously letting us walk in first?”

 

“You’re durable and I’m a better shot for covering fire.” Kincaid replied as though it were too obvious to require discussion. “You want to get to the Keeper or what?”

 

“My god.” The Colonel sighed in exasperation, opening the door. “It’s a bar, I’m expecting broken bottles and harsh words, not a siege.”

 

We walked in to the bar… and discovered nothing. Well, not “nothing.” There were all the things one would expect to find in a bar, stools, bottles, glasses, tables, chairs, a pool table, and a large TV playing the game. There were also plates of bar food still warm and steaming from the kitchen and frosty cold glasses of beer and liquor. You know what there weren’t?

 

People. The only place in town that I would have put money would be full to bursting and there weren’t any people. Oh, there was plenty of clothing. An entire village’s worth of it, but there were no people.

 

“That simplifies fears of a bar fight somewhat.” Vallarin joked, walking over to the bar and downing a pint as he looked at the game. “Turkey is doing quite well… who would have guessed?”

 

“The Turks?” I replied, cautiously walking into the bar and extending my wizard’s senses. There was magic in the air. It was nearly imperceptible so why did it feel so damn familiar? I caught a glimpse of motion out the side of my eye and spun on my heel, turning my staff to the source of the motion.

 

As I flared the runes along my staff, letting motes of fire pour from it like molten rain I aimed it in the direction of a small, furry shape that had been lingering near the back exit. It yelped in fear, it’s unnaturally yellow-gold eyes reflecting off the light cast from my staff as it fled out the back exit.

 

“Охуе́ть that was a wolf!” The Colonel jumped back as the door shut. “What was a wolf doing here?”

 

“Watching Turkey win.” I joked, before the joke immediately stopped being funny. I groaned as an idea hit me. “Ammit?”

 

“Yep.” Replied the huntress.

 

“When we got here did you smell people?” I inquired.

 

“Yep.” Replied the huntress as she stretched her arms and legs, limbering up.

 

“But you don’t smell those same people now, do you?” I thought back to the cabin we’d left and the dog-bitten chess pieces.

 

“Nope.” Ammit twisted back and forth, clicking her vertebrae in anticipation of exertion.

 

“But you do smell wolves. You smell lots of wolves.” Wolves like the ones that had crossed our path. Wolves like siberia had been full of since plenty of people had a reason to want to disappear into the wilderness. “Hell’s bells!”

 

I ran out of the bar screaming, “Don’t shoot!” at the top of my lungs as the howling started. “They can think - don’t shoot.”

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever been somewhere to hear a wolf howling. First one, then dozens, all baying for blood - but there is a primal, atavistic terror to it. There is a memory attached to that keening cry that harkens back to a time when men used to cower in their caves and pray that those wolves were coming for someone else. The Alphas had been able to scare the crap out of pretty much anyone, and there had only been a few of them.

 

There were a lot more than the Alphas. I don’t think there were hundreds, but there were plenty thank you very much. And they were all focused completely on Ammit. Because of course they would be. I had brought an apex predator into their territory and they were worried about the pack. The approached cautiously, snarling and baying. They gave the men with guns a wide berth as they circled round to Ammit, snapping and growling at the threat.

 

“Get on the ground.” I snapped at Ammit.

 

“Excuse me?” Ammit scoffed.

 

“They just want to make sure that you’re not here to hurt them. They’ve never seen an Unas before. ” I looked at the collected mass of wolves, my gaze landing on a particularly large, gaunt, dark wolf, with brilliant, feral amber eyes. It was sniffing the air speculatively and tilting its head as it looked at me. I put two and two together and became more convinced of my plan than ever. “You scare them. Get on the ground and lie on your back.”

 

“Not everything can be solved by surrendering Warden.” Ammit snarled, acquiescing to my demands nonetheless.

 

“Tera West - if you wouldn’t mind. I would appreciate not being torn apart by wolves tonight.” I addressed the wolf that had caught my eye, before addressing the collective pack. “We’re all missing the game. Wouldn’t you rather watch Turkey play.”

 

The collective mass of wolves stopped, somewhat confused to be addressed in conversational tones. None of them quite so much as the Wolf I had apparently correctly guessed to be Tera West, the lupine thermomorph and once Fiance of Harley MacFin. I’d lost track of her after the death of her Loup-garou lover, apparently her loss had been too great to even stay within the confines of the United States.

 

The dark wolf leapt forward and in an instant had melded into an naked, striking and dark-skinned woman with dark brown hair flecked with grey. She approached me cautiously, sniffing me as she examined me with amber eyed perplexion - ignoring the rest of our group as she circled me, addressing me in English. “I know you.”

 

“You do.” I replied.

 

“You’ve changed.” Tara sniffed my hair as she walked behind me, earning her a look of utter contempt from Muminah. “You’re older. Older than you should be.”

 

“Who isn’t?” I replied, earling a snort of amusement from Tara. “Why are you here?”

 

“I teach cubs.” She shrugged to the mass of wolves behind her. “These learn better. They understand hunger.”

 

“Are you teaching wolves to become people or people to become wolves?” I inquired.

 

“Does it matter?” Tara scoffed, looking down at Ammit. “Who is she?”

 

“A friend, like you.” I replied calmly but firmly. “We’re here to meet the Keeper.”

 

“Quikinna'qu will find you if he wishes.” Tara shook her head. “You do not find him.”

 

“I need to find him.” I insisted. “It’s urgent.”

 

“Wise men do not rush the Keeper.” Tara leaned in to look at Mumina, ignoring her contemptuous glare. She sniffed Mumina twice before declaring. “I like this one. She is a good choice for a mate. She will make a good mother.”

 

The whiplash from utter contempt to a full body blush seemed likely to break Muminah. I re-directed the subject for fear that the idea of “fathering children with the Warden” might become a tenant of the region. “Tara, I must meet him. There is a child in danger.”

 

“You are determined to walk into your doom on behalf of others, aren’t you?” Tara sighed, making a barking noise to the collected mass of wolves. The group all shifted, changing back into men and women of various ages. They all seemed to be in fantastic shape though - something about going werewolf, it always seemed to give you washboard abs.

 

The naked mob sauntered past us and into the bar to put their clothing back on and get back to watching the game. Vallarin turned to the Colonel and said, “Sir, I respectfully suggest that we edit this part of the report to avoid the implication that a collective of naked villagers got the best of us.”

 

“Da - I think that would be wise.” The Colonel sighed and accepted a pint offered to him by a barmaid who would have been appealing to look at even before she was naked.

 

“Tara - please help me. Someone is trying to do things to a little girl. He wants to hurt her worse than the curse hurt MacFinn.” I pleaded with her. “I swear on my magic that it’s true.”

 

Tara looked at me with those inhuman amber eyes, her face inscrutable as she considered my words before she looked up at a tree and said. “Brother Crow? Are you listening?”

 

A bird fluttered down from the tree and landed on the ground next to us. It cawed three times before ruffling its feathers. Ammit looked over at the bird from her supine position. “So if we’re all not killing each other and talking to birds… can I stand up now? Or is this still part of the plan.”

 

“Give me a second Ammit.” I replied.

 

“Fine, fine - I was comfortable anyway.” Ammit crossed her arms and looked up at the sky.

 

“Uh, hi brother bird.” I addressed the crow, feeling remarkably stupid. “I need to meet the Keeper. It’s really important. I will agree to come under a banner of truce - but I need to meet with him.”

 

The Bird Cawed once. Why?

 

“Did that bird just talk?” Marchenko groaned. “Have I reached the point in my day where wolves turn into nudists and birds talk? Is this what happens when you die in hell?”

 

“Shut up Marchenko.” Vallarin shushed him. “I want to see what happens.”

 

“The Archive was taken by Koschei. He has her in Buyan.” I replied, choosing honestly for the sake of brevity. “I want to save her.”

 

The Bird Cawed again. Why?

 

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” I affirmed.

 

Yet another caw. Why?

 

“Because she’s a child and you should save children in danger.” I insisted.

 

Just as I was starting to worry that the only thing this damnable crow could say was why, it asked a new question. Why you?

 

Finally, an easy question. “Because I promised I would protect her.”

 

The crow nodded once, and cawed again. Good.

 

And in a flash of light - we were no longer in front of the bar.


	36. Chapter 36

When my vision cleared, I was alone in a deep patch of woods with the crow - a small grove of trees that was untouched by the eternal winter of Siberia. The simmering warmth of a hot spring bubbled with sulfurous cheer, subterranean geothermals keeping the bright flowering green of the land around me in perpetuity. I almost felt ashamed to show up to this place carrying weapons. It was just so serene and pristine that it felt like I was polluting this place by just the implication of warfare.

 

“Thank you… Mr. Crow? Mrs. Crow? I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever caught your name.” I addressed the black creature as it twisted it’s neck, nibbling at its wing with its long beak. It ignored me entirely as I continued to speak to it. “Are - are you the Keeper? I’m really trying to speak to them.”

 

“While I am sure that bird has many relevant thoughts. I am afraid that he is just a normal crow.” Spoke an amused voice behind me. “There are, after all, creatures not imbued with great powers in the world.”

 

I turned around to face the speaker, coming face to face with something that resembled a human in only the vaugest sense of the word. It was bipedal, with two hands, two eyes, and a mouth - but that was about as human as it got. Instead of a nose it had a ridge of wide fins leading up the ridge of its face, gill-like protrusions that opened and closed in irregular motions. It’s body was wrapped in a shimmering metallic gown that wrapped up to their necks and down to stubby fingers.

 

I relaxed. If this being was powerful enough to translocate me in an instant, it easily could have done me harm when my back had been turned. “Quikinna'qu I presume?”

 

“No.” The woman replied, smiling a mouth full of dull - slightly-greenish, yellowing teeth. “We are merely contemporaries. The humans call us Nemes, but they give the title to others as well. We do not own it.”

 

“Neme? You mean Elves?” I smiled in reply. “You don’t resemble any Elves of the Summer or Winter Court I’ve ever seen.”

 

“One does not choose their name. It is given.” The woman shrugged. “You may call me Crow if you like. It will suffice while we wait.”

 

“Who are we waiting for?” I replied looking at a boulder next to me. I considered sitting in it briefly before dismissing the idea - sitting down had caused me enough difficulties for one week.

 

“The others. There must be a judge and a witness.” She looked up. I followed her gaze and came to realize that the trees were just utterly chock-o-block full of birds. Not just birds, birds that had absolutely no business in Siberia. Next to owls, hawks, doves, and crows were a cavalcade of brightly colored parrots, toucans, and songbirds of every description. There was even a particularly large, gamey, and sullen looking buzzard that sat exhaustively on a limb as starlings flitted around it’s head chatting animatedly. I empathized with that buzzard more than was strictly healthy.

 

“You need witnesses?” I swallowed, a sinking feeling hitting my gut. “Witnesses to what?”

 

The woman never broke her calm demeanor of friendliness as she said. “Judgement.”

 

“I’m on trial? For what?” I scoffed.

 

“Honesty.” She held her palms up placatingly, displaying the rough sucker-covered palms of her hands. “You are, after all, a Goa’uld. We would be foolish to take you at your word without proof.”

 

“Then why give me a chance at all?” I balked at the implication, furious that they were just lumping me in with every other Goa’uld without even giving me a chance. And then logic caught up to me - right, most of the Goa’uld were apathetic, evil monsters. Not everyone would just assume “reverse possession by Wizard.”

 

That damn logic at it again, ruining perfectly good indignation

 

“If we did not give people a chance to prove us wrong then we would never have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.” She clucked her tongue disappointedly. “We once had such high hopes for your people, Warden. I wish to see them learn as well.”

 

“You’re the First People aren’t you? The ones who came before Humans.” I inquired, curious at this magically powerful being I’d previously known nothing about.

 

“Yes and no.” The woman smiled. “We came before you, but we are not the first thinking beings of this world. We found a common cause and common friends, so we were invited to visit their home as we protected their friends in ours. We take their lost friends and help them find homes and safety where they can live in peace.”

 

I furrowed my brow in confusion, trying to get a sense for ambient magic in the air only to find the simple stillness of the cool Summer breeze. “Why can’t I sense any magic?”

 

“Because you use magic, Warden. You aren’t part of it. Nature isn’t something to bend to your will and shape to your needs.” She walked over to me and gently patted my arm. “It doesn’t make you a bad person, but you’re at conflict with everything - especially yourself. You are young.”

 

“Where are my companions?” A terrible thought occured to me. “Have you already judged them?”

 

“No - no child. Our place is not to judge their truth. They aren’t asking to see the Keeper. You are.” She clucked her tongue. “So quick to assume the worst because you lack better methods.”

 

“They’re unharmed?” I replied. I wasn’t going to let this go until I got a direct answer. There was always the possibility that Crow was lying to me and they were already dead, there were some supernatural beings who got off on that sort of thing. I didn’t think that was the case though. Tera West wasn’t unnecessarily cruel.

 

Then again… I had helped kill her fiance. That was the sort of thing that potentially made someone a touch irrational.

 

But… no. No, my gut was telling me that she, and consequently Crow, were on the level.

 

I trusted my gut. So I believed her when she smiled and said, “They will be returned to you, whole and well. We have no need to harm them.”

 

I blinked, my eyes struggling to focus on the tree line behind her. It was as though there were huge sections of the forest that I couldn’t see. Hell, I couldn’t even look at them. Every time I tried to raise my head to get a clear picture of them my eyes crossed and I got dizzy drying to pick a patch of the tree line that was safe to look at.

 

“It’s ok.” Crow patted my back soothingly, leading me over to the pool. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine. Try looking in the pool first. Look at the reflection first and your mind will help you fill in the gaps.”

 

I followed her instruction, staring into the glassy pool as runnels of steam streamed off it. At first my eyes still refused to look at the trees, but slowly I was able to focus on the spots of the woods that I couldn’t look before. Beneath the birds were huge, hairy figures with apeish faces and long fingers. If not for the snowy-white fur and bright-red Macaque-like faces, I might have mistaken them for the immediate family of Strength of a River on His Shoulders. Yeti - the Forest people of the frozen north.

 

A whole tribe of Yeti. Stars and Stones, I don’t know if any Wizard alive had ever seen an entire tribe of Yeti. There were old men as aged and craggy as the mountains. Young men, broad of chest and just starting to grow silver towered over me. Women, rough hewn as though from the very earth itself with babes in their arms. Infants! Of the Forest people? Young apeish boys and girls peeked out from behind their mothers and fathers, curious to catch a glimpse of the strange man with the starry eyes.

 

I looked back at crow, open mouthed, only to find that she’d reverted back to her avian form. She crooned to me, saying, “Good luck,” before flying back to her fellow birds. It occured to me that she’d never specified if she was there to be the judge or the witness.

 

Well, when in doubt, be polite. I waved to the Yeti, and greeted them convivially in Russian. “Hey there. Thanks for inviting me.”

 

One of the smaller children shouted back. “You’re welcome!” with rampant enthusiasm to the collective amusement of the Yeti. His mother shushed him, batting him back behind her leg with a long paw and an exasperated sigh.

 

“Well - that pretty much ruins the illusion of dramatic tension.” Groused an aged voice that rumbled like the echoes of hoofbeats through a cave. A particularly aged and singularly apeish Yeti walked out of the crowd, leaning heavily on a staff that was effectively just a discarded tree-trunk carved in elaborate runes. He plodded forward, walking around the children of the tribe. His skin hung loosely as though he’d once been made of thick muscular bulk but had since withered away with age, flapping as he walked.

 

He was bowed with age, bent like a shrimp, but he still towered over me as he plodded over to the boulder I had elected not to sit in and plopped down upon it. He groaned as his knees clicked and snapped his fingers. Several of the adolescent Yeti, still a full head taller than I, came over to us with a large iron brazier and filled it with dry logs. He waved them away, snapped his fingers, and ignited the logs with an effort of will before looking at me. “Will you join me by my fire?”

 

“Yes.” I agreed without hesitation. If this being intended to judge me as his guest there was at least some hope of succeeding at his challenge and an above average assurance that Crow had been genuine that they intended us no ill will.

 

He leaned in, narrowing his eyes as he sniffed the air twice and scoffed before speaking English in a vaguely Inuit accent. “I’ll be damned. The wolf was right. Strength of a River on His Shoulders’ human friend made the damn fool choice to become a Goa’uld.”

 

“You know my smell?” I replied, mildly bemused.

 

“I know River Shoulders and that son of his he tries to have and not have at the same time.” The man pawed at his ear, pulling out some sort of insect and popping it in his mouth. He chewed it wetly as he made another gesture to his children. They came out with fish on skewers and started setting them around the fire. “He doesn’t want to burden his child with tradition. But it seems mean not to let the child at least have the opportunity to choose to walk the mortal path.”

 

“That doesn’t really answer my question.” The cooking fish started to make me salivate. How long had it been since I’d last eaten? Hell, it had to have been days. “Is that Tuna?”

 

“Salmon. Here, have some caviar.” He summoned more of the children to bring us stone bowls full of salt-cured roe and thick pieces of bread and cheese.

“Oh, God that’s good.” I spoke between salty mouthfuls. In retrospect, I might have been a poor host to River Shoulders by comparison.

 

“I know. We’ve got some ponds we keep for ourselves. Learned some of the industrial fishing stuff from our fuzzy friends in town. We’re better with animals than most.” He flashed a mouth full of surprisingly white teeth. I noted idly that he’d gotten braces. Orthodontia for a Yeti, would wonders never cease.

 

He let me finish my plate before he answered my question. He’d devoured his own in moments. “Well there, as to your question. Please understand that I don’t mean it as a slight, but you smell. You have a particular odor to you that wasn’t strictly normal even before you went and became a Goa’uld - a subject I might add that we’re not done discussing - but it clings to the people you meet. River Shoulders stank of you for a month after meeting you. Well, that and Burger King but it seems that you’ve given up that habit.”

 

“Don’t remind me.” I groused. “I know that people's scents are distinctive but is mine really that distinctive?”

 

“It's the magic, son. The bad stuff. It sticks to you.” The Yeti replied. “We can smell it. Not just that it's there but why. ”

 

“Oh.” I replied, ashamed.

 

“Oh, don’t feel too bad kid. You smell better than most Wizards for most of history. It’s just this new batch that have lucked into not having had anything too terrible come about.” The Yeti waved off my worries and then blinked. “But I’m forgetting my manners. I am Quikinna'qu or Big Raven if you prefer. Most just call me the Big Grampa or Gramps.”

 

“Gramps.” I practically choked on the name.

 

“Well, hell - I’m probably great-great-great-great-times god knows how many gramps if we’re going to get technical about it. I never quite got around to figuring out how old I am because we hadn’t quite bothered with numbers when I started to be.” He pulled a toothpick out of his fur and started fishing chunks of bread out of his braces. “So I’m not going to get up in arms about someone realizing the patently obvious. I’m old and ornery.”

 

“Harry.” I replied, holding out my hand. “Harry Dresden. But I would appreciate it if you and your people did me the courtesy of only calling me “Lord Warden” when strangers are around.”

 

“Lord is it?” Scoffed the Yeti as he clasped my armored hand in his gigantic paw. “Well la-dee-dah.”

 

“I didn’t pick the title.” I replied.

 

“No, traditionally some damn fool invents it then another inherits it.” Gramps picked up a skewer and gestured for me to do the same. I picked it up and bit into it, my eyes rolling back into my head at the simple pleasure of eating. “I would quite like to know how you managed to become a Ascended Goa’uld Lord though.”

 

“Heka tried to possess me.” I spoke through a mouthful of fish. “It didn’t take. A friend of mine saw what he was doing and sort of… reversed the process. One thing let to another and I ended up accidentally triggering a ritual.”

 

“Kid, do you mean to tell me that you reverse possessed a snake and used his ritual to steal his divinity?” The Yeti asked before hooting with laughter, choking on a bite of tuna as he struggled to eat and laugh at the same time. “Oh - that is too good. Oh. “Warden” I give my word that my tribe and I will keep that secret - if only because we get make fun of the Goa’uld for not getting it.”

 

“Thanks.” I paused, realizing that there was something that I really needed to mention to Gramps before we got down to business. “Oh - before I forget to mention it. The Genoskwa escaped from Archangel when the Fortress fell.”

 

“A Genoskwa.” The Yeti corrected me. “And we know. But I appreciate the heads up.”

 

“There’s more than one of those lunatics?” I squawked.

 

“Young men make mistakes.” Gramps shrugged. “Some learn from them. Some repent. Some don’t. You know that, Harry.”

 

“Ah - so, your people will be safe?” I replied in relief.

 

Gramps bit his lower lip in thought at my reply, snapping his fingers so that the boys would bring us each a mug of something that smelled somewhere between alcohol and battery acid. “I think I’ve decided I like you.”

 

I sniffed the booze that had been handed to me, unwilling to offend my host by turning down the drink. Time to put my godly constitution to the test, I supposed. I downed the drink with him, my eyes watering as I drank the overpowering concoction. My vision swam as I finished the mug, wheezing at the strength of it. “Holy crap that has a kick to it? What was it?”

 

“Grain alcohol mixed with a couple a’ things that make it stick for people like you and me. It’d kill a human outright, but you’re made of sterner stuff.” Gramps reached over the fire and slapped my back with a lanky arm, helping me cough. “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

 

I wondered how literal that statement was as I caught my breath and got to the matter at hand. “Gramps, I’m here for a Chariot to get to Buyan.”

 

Gramps let out a long whistle at my request. “I like you, Harry - but you’re asking for one hell of a lot. It’s not an accident we’ve been keeping that from people. It’s dangerous. You’re already a kid playing with deadly power you don’t understand. And you want me to hand you a weapon I don’t think I could use safely.”

 

“I have to go to Buyan.” I insisted. “It’s important.”

 

“Is it?” Gramps mulled over my insistence before letting out a long, low growl. “What is it that Koschei has done now?”

 

“He has the Archive.” I replied. “Thoth’s Archive.”

 

“Well - crap.” Gramps brow ridge raised at the implications of that. “Yep - that would qualify as important given what Buyan is and how damn old Koschei is.”

 

“You know how old Koschei is?” I blinked.

 

“His mother gave birth to him when she was young - so no. I’m not that old.” Gramps grunted in disgust. “But just because he’s my elder doesn’t make him my better. That man is full of hate and death. I can’t say that leaving a woman with him makes sense even if she’s got power.”

 

“Child.” I corrected.

 

“Excuse me?” Gramps voice darkened.

 

“The Archive. She’s six.” I replied.

 

“Bitch of a mother...” Gramps snarled. “To do that to a child. This - this is monstrous, we’ve tolerated his temper tantrum for long enough. Pity will only go so far.”

 

“You’ll give it to me then?” I asked excitedly.

 

“No.” Gramps held up a finger as I began to protest. “Hold on there kid. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. But it’s not mine to give. That’s why we’re meeting. So that I can decide if you get to meet the one who can let you have it.”

 

I blinked in confusion. “But - why couldn’t they just ask me themselves?”

 

“Power comes at a price, kid. The more power you get the less freedom you have. Koschei is the last of his people on Earth, last alive near as I can tell, but they’re still around. They still listen and they still act. Some help when they’re allowed.” He gestured to the hot springs. “The Zoryas - they’re the ones you need to convince.”

 

I followed his gesture and had to close my eyes at the sheer brilliance of the light coming from two figures floating along the water’s surface. Beautiful, shimmering shapes like some sort of invertebrate water creature made from sunlight and birdsong caressed the water’s surface. The spun and danced through the air, jellyfish like tendrils of solar energy coalescing and re-shaping into the forms of two stunningly beautiful women with pale skin and hair made of pure sunlight.

 

I stared at the two beings of pure light, utterly gobsmacked. My mouth - apparently in no need of a functioning brain to operate, connected the creatures of light with something I’d seen nearly a year ago. “I’ve seen one of you before. On Nekheb - one of you fought a Shoggoth.”

 

“A debt was owed.” Spoke one of the women, in a voice that rang with subtle music to it.

 

“You wish the ship.” Spoke the second, matter of factly. “Will you use it to kill Koschei?”

 

“If I have to.” I replied.

 

“Do you want to?” Asked the first.

 

“I - yes. Yes I do.” I replied, choosing truth. “He took a freaking kid.”

 

“Do you know why?” Asked the second. “What one could accomplish with her knowledge and Buyan’s power?”

 

“Lady, respectfully, I don’t give a shit. There is a six year old child in danger.” I stood up and stared her in the eye. “Now - what do I have to give you so that you’ll give me the tools to save her.”

 

The looked at each other, smiling wickedly before regarding me. “The price has already been freely given. Your patron is eager to support your mission. She sends her love.”

 

My heart caught in my throat as I dared to hope. Lash? “Who paid it?”

 

“Our role has been met, Wizard.” Spoke the first as she waved her hand and a long, cylindrical grey, tube appeared on the soft loamy earth. It was angular on both ends, with odd geometric patterns along its length. As the craft appeared the two figures disappeared and along with them the yeti and the birds.

 

“Wait. Who paid it?” I shouted at the sky as the flickering motes of sunlight dissolved into the dark night’s sky. I looked at the empty clearing around me then shouted. “And where are my friends?”

 

There was another flash of blue light and I suddenly found myself at the center of my compatriots. Kincaid blinked in confusion, looking from the skewers of fish, to the roaring fire, to the metal cylinder, and finally to me. “Uh - Warden… what… what exactly happened?”

 

“Apparently Crow gave us ship and dinner.” Marchenko replied picking up a skewer of the fish and digging into it. “No mayonnaise, but we can’t have everything in life.”

 

Ammit sniffed the air and made eye contact with Kincaid, apparently the both of them could still smell Yeti on the air. She growled in English. “Deal finished?”

 

“Yes” I replied.

 

“Food safe?” She inquired.

 

“Definitely.” I responded, starting to fiddle with what appeared to be the entrance to the cylinder.

 

“Good enough.” She grunted, sitting next to Marchenko and taking a skewer.

 

Kincaid shook his head and leaned against the cylinder. “Apparently I need to pick up ornithology. Crows are damn useful it would seem.”

 

“It wasn’t the crow really.” I replied cryptically. “It was the Raven.”


	37. Chapter 37

“What are you doing?” Kincaid asked, leaning in as I started reaching along the side of the cylinder - patting along it systematically.

 

“Looking for the door.” I replied in English, scratching at the metal with the talon tips of my gauntlets. “This spaceship isn’t of Goa’uld make - so I’m not sure how to get in.”

 

There was a tone of confusion in Kincaid’s voice given the chain of events leading up to this point when he asked, “Spaceship?”

 

I froze for a moment, trying to reconcile the simple absurdity of that question with the chain of events leading up to this point. I mean - he had to know, didn’t he? How could he possibly have gotten this far into this process without understanding something that basic? “Excuse me? What did you just ask?”

 

“It’s not important.” Kincaid shook his head. “Really if you’d just come over - “

 

“No, no, no - I want to address this.” I shushed the mercenary. “Kincaid - where do you think the Stargate took you? The big ring you walked through to kidnap me?”

 

“Another planet.” The Mercenary replied immediately. “It’s a magical artifact that can transport people between rings.”

 

“How did you think people got to those planets to put the rings there?” I continued to fiddle with the wall. “Stars and Stones, what did you think the transport was? A freaking helicopter?”

 

“I’m not an idiot - Warden.” Kincaid replied glibly. “I just meant that there’s no clear source of propulsion. Damned if I know how it flies. No wings - no engines. ”

 

“And no doors.” I groused, kicking the side of it in annoyance.

 

“Not on that side, certainly.” Kincaid replied in amusement, leaning up against the side of the craft next to where I’d kicked it. He had the audacity to look cool doing it too, the jerk.

 

I closed my eyes and exhaled long and slow. “There is an obvious door on the back of it, isn’t there?”

 

“Yep.” Kincaid replied, fiddling with the sight on his oversized automatic rifle.

 

“And you were telling me about it when I interrupted you, weren’t you?” I slumped my shoulders and walked over to the no patently obvious location of the hatch. I’d grown accustomed to Goa’uld design. Ptah’s ships would never include a rear section without additional armor. It was just begging for someone to shoot you from behind. Apparently the designers of this ship were confident that it wouldn’t be flanked or had designed it for civilian rather than military use.

 

“No - you’d never do something foolish like that oh “Lord” Warden.” Kincaid’s satisfied grin made me want to punch him. I didn’t though. “You’re a god.”

 

“You’re lucky I’m a merciful god.” I groused.

 

Once I’d located an actual door, opening the ship was relatively easy. The gangplank descended and exposed a pretty much empty interior. I found myself sharing Kincaid’s doubts - how did this thing fly? There was no apparent engine and if there were ritual markings or objects involved, they were too subtle for me to see them. I spoke softly as I walked inside, “Well - I’m here. What now?”

 

Ammit poked her head in after me, speaking in a voice of utter reverence. “This is Gate Builder technology. I’ve never been this close to it. Ra had some of it, but it was too dangerous to allow people unrestricted access.”

 

“Did not the Goa’uld build the stargates?” Asked a nervous voice from the door. The fur clad priestess was poking her nose around the door.

 

“We built the gate network as it stands now.” Ammit replied diplomatically, mulling over the question. “But the Stargates? I don’t think many Goa’uld bothered to make new ones. There is as much naquadah in a single gate as most empires. We usually just took gates from worlds that couldn’t support the life of our client races. The species before us made them. I’ve always reasoned that’s why there’s so little naquadah remaining. They already mined the most practical locations.”

 

“What manner of monsters could exist in a world before the Gods? How can such a thing even be permitted?” Muminah looked like the very idea of species before the Goa’uld would derail our conversation for days but I really felt that she was focusing on the wrong part of Ammit’s sentence.

 

“Too dangerous?” I replied nervously, reflexively pulling my hand away from the square block of crystal I’d been touching. I only realized that I’d been speaking in English, after Kincaid flinched - hesitating to enter. I switched to Goa’uld. “What kind of danger?

 

“Here in the ship? Nothing - well, hopefully nothing.” Ammit scratched at her brow ridge nervously. “The Gate Builders were all immensely magically gifted. They designed their technology assuming a baseline capacity to use magic that puts the Hok’tar to shame.”

 

“I’ve never even heard of the Gate Builders.” I arched a brow. “Heka’s library didn’t contain much about them. It seems like the sort of thing he would have been focused on.”

 

“Heka wasn’t dumb enough to keep anything relating to them where just anyone could find it. If we broadcast the existence of the Gate Builders then some idiot would try to go and actually find their stuff without taking the proper precautions. Heka and Ptah were pretty much the only ones with enough knowledge to safely lead one of those expeditions.” Ammit shuddered at the thought of it. “Nobody with half a brain should want to join one either. Their cities and ships are effectively minefields of accidentally lethal objects and experiments that were as likely to destroy the world we find them on as advance our civilization by thousands of years.”

 

“Are you telling me that if I interact with this ship improperly I could blow up the planet.” I groused. “Why would you make a transport that could blow up the planet? Why would you need a transport that can blow up a planet?”

 

“Not the planet - no. Probably the continent… I hope.” Ammit sighed. “I wouldn’t dwell on how deadly this thing has the capacity to be. We don’t exactly have a choice. Byan itself? That’s a different story. That place is intentionally lethal. We should be fine though, Buyan won’t attack a Gate Builder ship.”

 

“When you say “won’t” attack,” I shifted my staff to my left hand as I put it against another door control to open the cockpit. “Do you know that or are you just guessing?”

 

“The Archive managed not to get shot when she used one of these to escape Buyan. But I don’t know how the defenses to that thing work, it’s a best guess” Ammit shrugged as she followed me into the cockpit, perching daintily on the massively undersized co-pilot’s seat. “ I know it worked the first time I used one of these. Can’t say much more that that for sure.”

 

“You dragged us half-way across a planet on a gut hunch that we might not die if we used a ship that might not destroy the continent when we turn it on.” I snorted, amused at the absurdity of the reversal. “Ammit - do you actually have a plan?”

 

“What? You’re the only one that gets to make it up as you go along?” Ammit tapped the controls in irritation. She fidgeted with the buttons and dials, pressing keys and symbols seemingly at random as she muttered under her breath. Apparently for naught, nothing responded to her attempts.

 

“Ugh - useless. The Ancients gene locked these things to only work for them.” She snorted, looking at me sidelong with reptilian amusement. “I suppose this is how most of the creatures who stumble on our tech feel. Ptah does love to steal from the best.”

 

“Wait - then what are we even doing here? If we can’t turn it on it’s pointless to even try.” I sat down in the Pilot’s chair, grabbing what looked vaguely like a steering wheel. “I don’t get it - if these things only work for the Gate Builders, how did the Archive get them to turn on?”

 

“You know what, Warden? For just this once - it’s nice to be the one who knows what’s going to happen before you do.” Ammit’s crocodilian grin of amusement lit up as the dark interior of the chariot was suddenly bathed in blue-white illumination.

 

As though the ship had been an extension of my very body it responded to the idea of “turning on” by flashing to life. Lights flared to life from seemingly everywhere, a grinding whirr of engines, hidden god alone knew where, filled the tube as holograms shimmered into view. To my surprise, in spite of never having seen the symbols before - I could read them. I might never have heard of these Gate Builders before, but apparently Lash had. I looked at Ammit, befuddled. “How?”

 

“Hok’tar, Warden - the Wizards. They’re the remaining bloodlines of the Gate Builders.” Ammit smiled sadly. “That’s why every Goa’uld wanted them instead of the other magical races.”

 

She gestured at the glowing controls, prodding uselessly at buttons in the holographic display. Her talons found no purchase. “I could sit in this ship for eternity and never use it. You can be here for minutes and have it respond to your every whim. There are some systems hard-wired to stuff I can touch - the gate controls for example - but most of it? Entirely useless to one without the blood of the Builders.”

 

“This ship of the Builders?” Muminah inquired nervously. “The blood of the Gods before Gods - is it enough to command this vessel?”

 

That was actually a good question. By all rights I should have been horrified at the prospect of flying a spaceship. Embarrassing though it was to admit it, I wasn’t even a particularly good driver. Yeah, I know it means someone out there is looking to revoke my man card, but honestly I drive in one of two ways. Either I’m scrupulously obeying the traffic laws in an effort to not stand out in any way that might spook a suspect or draw the attention of a cop, or I’m disregarding all traffic laws in a concerted effort not to die. Flying a plane was a skill set that took years to master - the space shuttle took a lifetime. I should have been utterly petrified to be trying to pilot a vessel from the dawn of freaking time.

 

But I wasn’t. Something - call it intuition, call it a gut feeling, call it a sense of destiny - you can call it whatever you like - something was telling me that this was something I could do without even trying. My hands fit into the controls as effortlessly as if I’d been holding my staff or blasting rod. Just another tool.

 

“I think - no, I know that I can fly this.” I flipped through the holograms, manipulating the menus to show me what I was looking for. This interface was flawless - I don’t know if I’d ever used anything as user friendly as it. Unlike the Goa’uld technology this had been made for a near human mind with near human sensibilities for presentation of information and indications. “Is everyone good to go?”

 

“Da!” Replied the Colonel as the rear door closed. “And I want one of these as well.”

 

“Not in the deal, Colonel.” I looked over my shoulder at the quartet of Russians, noting the lack of other seats. “Uh - hold on to something. I don’t know how fast this is going to be.”

 

I tightened my hold of the control grips and lightly manipulated it towards where I wanted it to go and the cylinder leapt to life as though I’d been flying one of these all my life. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that this thing was alive - it moved through the air with such utter elegance. A red triangle appeared on the holographic interface in an instant as I considered the location of Buyan, hovering in the starry sky three hundred thousand miles above us.

 

“Holy crap,” I whistled. “Uh - well, buckle up kids. It looks like we’re going to the Moon.”

 

“Sorry - could you please say that again?” Colonel Zhukov replied with his lips quirked upward and his eyes closed.

 

“We’re going to the Moon?” I repeated, observing as he adjusted his beret. “I mean, he’s in a flying city ship. The Moon is a reasonable place to hide.”

 

“Nyet - Nyet,” The Colonel’s wistful tone sounded almost bashful. “I just never passed the physicals to be a Cosmonaut. It just sounds nice to hear out loud - We’re going to the moon. It has a good ring to it.”

 

“Well Buzz Zhukov - you’re going to get your wish.” Kincaid replied, grinning from ear to ear. Hell - they all were. Who doesn’t want to go to the moon?”

 

There were some days where being a Wizard was just downright cool. Flying a spaceship abandoned by first Wizards of all time to fight an evil geriatric on the moon? Yeah - that was a pretty cool day. I hummed the theme to Star Wars as I punched the accelerator, propelling us across the sky.

 

It flowed through the open air like a dream, disregarding the wisdom of Bernoulli with casual ease. Unfortunately age and decrepitude seemed to have taken their toll on it, it plodded through the air at a pace that seemed more on par with the Land Beetle than it’s Skyward namesake. I was getting a comfortable two hundred miles an hour of of it, which was the interstellar equivalent to flying a paddleboat to the moon.

 

As we pierced the cloud cover, heading up through vaporous puffs of altostratus a cluster of fast wege-like objects appeared on my holographic readout. As I idly considered what they might be the image zoomed in on the approaching object, displaying a long nosed craft with a red star on its tail.

 

“Friends of yours Colonel?” I asked, willing the ship to move faster.

 

“Cheburashka,” The Colonel groaned. “MiG-23s, they are coming to intercept the unknown craft in their airspace. Others will follow.”

 

“Damn it.” They were going to catch up to me in an instant. And they were definitely armed.

 

“Does this thing have a radio?” Kincaid asked. “Something to communicate with them so you can tell them to back off.”

 

“Are you insane? Someone has just nuked Russia. Nothing is allowed in our airspace in that state of emergency.” The Colonel scoffed at the suggestion. “They will be operating on encrypted comms and treating all unknown contacts as aggressors. Even if I were to identify myself over unencrypted communications my words would be dismissed as lies. No, Kincaid, they are coming to kill us as soon as they can.”

 

Smaller red objects detached from the triangular objects, barreling towards us. I didn’t need the Colonel’s scream of “incoming” to know what they were. Missiles, mortal missiles to be sure but I was pretty sure that Russia had cracked open the “in case of” cabinet under the circumstances.”

 

We were basically just an unarmed block of metal floating in open air. I did not need to be seen right now. I definitely didn’t want to be seen by someone with freaking missiles. “They’re too close.”

 

And then suddenly, with a shimmering whirr of moving machinery within the walls I felt a rush of energy washing over the hull of the craft. It didn’t feel quite like magic - it was too cool and calculated to be any magic I’d ever experienced. Magic was a passionate force. It came from somewhere. Even ritual magics had some sort of emotional or spiritual component to them. The power that was suddenly surrounding me was just raw logic. It was as though someone through sheer force of mathematical will had demanded the universe comply with the inexorable conclusion of their sums.

 

It wasn’t wrong, not in the way that black magic or some of the nastier pacts with dark beings left a stench on the world, but it was so clinical that it might as well have been cast by a robot. That wasn’t to say I didn’t recognize its purpose. You don’t spend months of your life conducting war councils with Mab and not understand the nuances of illusionary magic.

 

Especially when the missiles that were previously heading straight for you careen out in random directions, attempting to find the target that had been there only moments ago. The confused Russian pilots spread out, trying to maximize their area of coverage as they impotently searched for an aircraft that was suddenly no longer in the skies.

 

The Colonel sighed in mixed relief and exasperation. “I am going to find, thank, kiss, then summarily execute whatever morons are charge of training those pilots in the use of their systems and maintaining the upkeep of their radar.”

 

“Not their fault.” I pitched us out of earth’s atmosphere, I replied in English so that Kincaid wasn’t out of the loop. “I made it so they couldn’t see us.”

 

“You can manipulate the eyes of pilots flying faster than the speed of sound beyond visual range?” Marchenko exhaled long and frustratedly. “How - that’s - just how?”

 

“Magic.” I replied, hoping against hope that the chariot would hide itself as well from Buyan as it did from MiGs. “Come on can this thing move any faster?”

 

“Did you disengage the landing gear?” Inquired Vallarin.

 

“Did I what?” I looked around at the soldier.

 

“The legs that extend out under the craft to stabilize it.” Asked the Soldier. “I noticed them when we were on the ground… did you retract them?”

 

My eye twitched as a command prompt appeared as I considered his suggestion, offering to retract the landing gear. I pressed “yes” on the holographic display and resisted the urge to scream in frustration as the craft accelerated faster than the Sky Beetle could have ever hoped to match.

 

I did not dare look back at Kincaid and the smug look I knew was plastered on his face as we propelled up towards the moon.


	38. Chapter 38

The whirring, purr-hum of the chariot’s engines chirruped its keening rhythm even into the void of space. We punched through Earth’s atmosphere, out into the gaping chasm of emptiness that was space. I hadn’t seen it this clearly in a while, not since the Unicorn I’d ridden into battle against the forces of Chronos. The vast nothing was a humbling reminder of just how small and insignificant I was in comparison to the universe I lived in.

 

Which, I suppose, was probably why the Goa’uld didn’t design ships with prominent windows.

 

The ship skimmed across the void, dancing around man made satellites and leftover debris from our attempts to pierce the stars. I resisted the brief, but powerful, urge to buzz the international space station. There were already going to be enough conspiracy theories about what I’d done this week without needing to add any flames to the fire.

 

It bothered me that that line of thinking seemed to satisfy the brief spike of irritation my mantle felt at not indulging in the prank.

 

As we approached the moon, I flew low to its surface, taking advantage of the natural crevasses and craters. I knew that the chariot’s countermeasures were good enough to fool Soviet made radar, but I wasn’t going to gamble on Buyan having similarly limited detection. I flew low, but not so low as to agitate up the clouds of basaltic and anorthic rock that seemed likely to burst up at any second without gravity to inhibit them.

 

I needn’t have bothered.

 

On the dark side of the moon, cloaked in a disruptive corona of frost and billowing moon dust, the flying city of Buyan loomed above the moon’s surface. It stood at the heart of the Moon’s shadow, perched atop a beam of orange-white light that it was using to bore into the moon’s surface and anchor itself into place. The seismic forces of its disruptive energy were tossing rocks and debris into the air as errant bolts of orange lightning danced across the solid barrier of energy protecting Buyan from the mayhem it was causing.

 

As the rest of us were intently focused on the flying city Kincaid leaned over my chair, his eyes half-focused into the distant nothing as he looked at something I couldn’t see.

 

I grunted in English, annoyed at the sudden intrusion into my personal space “You mind?”

 

“No.” Kincaid replied, making no attempt to move from where he’d planted himself as he looked far to the left of our eventual destination, the moon. He raised his hand, pointing out into the void. “Can you get a better look at… whatever that thing is?”

 

The Chariot, ever eager to please, cut off my sarcastic reply before I had a chance to properly form one, displaying a ship loitering in the far distance. Ammit hissed in surprise, idly rumbling in the Goa’uld language before reverting into her mangled English. “You saw an Asgard battleship with your bare eyes? At this distance?”

 

The Hellhound grunted in the affirmative but provided no context as to how he’d managed that particular trick. The Hellhound wasn’t human in the strictest sense, but other than knowing that he didn’t exactly fit the mold for a bog-standard human – I had only my teacher’s implications to go on to tell me what he actually was.

 

At the moment though, there were more pressing questions to ask. We still had a decent trek to get to the moon and I couldn’t afford any more delays between Ivy and I.

 

“Will it interfere?” I inquired, nervous at its presence. I’d done research into the Asgard after my first encounter with Thor. Individual ships in the Asgard fleet were more than a match for the combined navies many Goa’uld factions.

 

“If Loki planned on killing us he would have done it in the … Blood of Apep.” Ammit swore as the hologram zoomed out and revealed a sudden disruption of matter and energy as another Battleship appeared from hyperspace… and another. Five ships shimmered into view in as many seconds, “That’s… that’s an entire Asgard war party.”

 

Apparently, Winter’s Eden Son wasn’t any more popular with the Norse gods than he was with mother dearest. The Asgard warships bore down on Earth’s moon with clinical precision, firing prismatic beams of multicolored light in murderous technicolor. The dark side of the moon turned into a literal laser light show, Asgardian weapons of war scourging against the shields of Buyan.

 

The city of Buyan returned the assault in kind, unleashing it’s own brilliant torrent of golden motes at the Asgard. The hellish fairy-lights swarmed out of Buyan like a swarm of angry insects, howling angrily through the air towards the Asgard warships.

 

I blinked in confusion as I realized that I hadn’t imagined that last part. A cursory glance at the other occupants of the ship confirmed that I wasn’t the only one who thought they were going insane. “You can hear that too?”

 

“I can… it’s impossible, but I can hear those things screaming through the void.” Vallarin agreed. “I don’t know how but I definitely can.”

 

The first cloud of glowing projectiles met the nearest of the Asgard warships, swimming through the shields and armored prow of the aircraft. They burrowed through it, swarming in and out of it like a school of flying-fish cresting a wave. The Norse warship collapsed in on itself, imploding in a burst of blue light that sucked the swarm into a sudden implosion of extreme gravity. Apparently even when they died the Asgard did so tactically.

 

The implosion was only marginally effective. The swarm of projectiles ripped their way back out of the extreme pocket of gravity, ripping through the laws of physics with a casual disregard for causality and a shower of viscous ectoplasm.

 

“Hell’s Bells.” I groaned, switching to Goa’uld to address Ammit. “Then those are a magical weapon? Something with a spiritual component?”

 

“Warden – they’re Gate Builder weapons.” The Deamoness gestured vaguely at the Chariot’s systems. “The Builders never quite got around to figuring out why there should be a difference between ritual magics, binding spells, and mundane tools.”

 

As a second Asgard ship ruptured it pitched forward, using the momentum from it’s explosion to fling it’s armored prow towards the city of Buyan. The spear tip of it disrupted the shield briefly, allowing the ship to fire a multicolored beam through one of the city’s dagger-spires before the ship exploded. The ship tossed armor and flaming liquid in all directions, spreading out into the city as its shields sliced through the armored hull of the ship.

 

“How in the hell do we get through those shields Ammit?” I screamed, rolling the gate-builder craft to the right as an Asgard battleship fell from the sky to the moon’s surface. It disappeared into a sudden cloud of moon-dust as the piranha-like swarm devoured it, dissolving it into a green wave of nuclear flames.

 

“I didn’t plan on the Asgard, Warden.” Ammit replied. “The Archive wasn’t dealing with a city at war when she snuck out of it.”

 

“Why are they attacking him?” The Chariot rocked to the right as we were caught in the shock-wave of sheer kinetic force from another exploding Asgard craft. We spun hard and fast, but I was able to correct us with minimal effort from the chariot. I didn’t want to imagine how bad that would have been if we’d been in Earth’s gravity instead of the moon. “Other than him just being his normal, friendly self.”

 

“Odin probably.” Ammit braced herself against another violent shake as I dodged an armored fin falling from an Asgard craft. “He has multiple treaties with Mab to protect her from her brother. The last leader of the Asgard failed to protect Mab’s predecessor from Koschei – he regards it as a personal failure.”

 

“Yeah… I’m getting that vibe.” I replied in reverent horror as another ten Asgard warships appeared, even larger and more heavily armored than the first craft. The beam that had been emanating from Buyan into the moon’s surface ceased, brilliant light cutting off entirely as the flying city raised from the ground as billowing shadows emerged from where it had been directing its weapon. The shadows bubbled up from the moon’s crust, cloying and hungering out from the moon’s heart like a bleeding wound.

 

The shadows plumed up, festering across the open void as things swam through it. Pale, squat, toad-like creatures crested the waves of shadow mounted atop strange sailing galleys. They fired arbalest tipped with blue-green spears of crystal at the Asgard ships, thousands upon thousands of flaming-jade spears peppering the hulls of the Asgardian warships. Tiny, arrow-dart fighter craft disgorged from the bellies of the larger Asgard warships, firing blue flames at the inhuman moon-beasts to dissolve them into ectoplasm.

 

The shields of Buyan parted slightly, opening up to allow one of the barges to enter the city. I swore angrily as I saw my chance. Pitching my chariot into the deepest pocket of shadow. As the wave of shadow consumed our craft, I felt the disruptive wrongness of the shadow wash over it. A greasy feeling of unease subsumed me as the warning flashed on my readout “cloaking disabled.”

 

“Damn it.” I groaned as the spears of jade started to come towards us as well as towards the Asgard. A jagged shot of blazing jade arbalest shot pierced the cockpit, venting atmosphere. “Doesn’t this thing have any weapons?”

 

Apparently, it did.

 

Always eager to please, the Chariot interpreted my intent in an instant – targeting several of the moon-thing’s ships and firing a few of the glowing yellow projectile weapons in quick succession. The galley I was following burst into flames as I rocketed past the wreckage, just barely flying in through Buyan’s shields as the city angrily smashed closed its defenses – shutting off the remaining galleys from the city proper. Three of them smashed against the city shields before the rest of them broke off, riding the tendrils of shadow out towards the Asgardian warships.

 

I noted that eyes had opened along the shadowy tendrils, wide slitted orbs of red and yellow that cast out purple bursts of lightning at the Asgardian craft. The grey men grabbed onto that lightning, riding it up and into the open sores along the hulls of the Asgardian warships.

 

I’m embarrassed to admit that I was so distracted by the display that I didn’t see the window until it was too late.

 

The chariot’s mass shattered through the glass wall of a dangling skyscraper, motion arresting abruptly as the front end of the chariot met the front of a large water feature at the center of a large library. The crash damaged whatever device or ritual had been preventing forward inertia from being felt within the chariot, driving my head into metallic surface of the control devices. Absent a safety harness I cracked my head against it with enough force to pulp my skull.

 

I pulled away from the control panel, blinded by pain and sudden absence of eyes. I staggered, grabbing hold of Kincaid’s harness as my face reformed. As my sight restored, I was greeted by the horrified expressions of the Russian soldiers – apparently watching my head re-form had been as gruesome to watch as it had been painful to feel.

 

My compatriots had faired better in the crash than I had. Kincaid apparently had the good sense to lash himself to the wall and ceiling with paracord laced though his combat webbing, giving him sufficient leverage to grab Muminah and hold her in a bear hug to keep her safe. Ammit’s bulk allowed her to grab hold of the ceiling and use her mass to arrest the forward momentum of the Russian soldiers, blocking them against an immovable wall of scales.

 

“Ok, all you happy people.” I snarled through a jaw that was half-formed and vocal chords that were more Goa’uld reverberation than human speech at the moment – my words echoing in Russian, English, and Goa’uld simultaneously, though damned if I knew how. “All ashore who are going ashore.”

 

As my words became more coherent, I realized that my linguistic simulcast was a result of my mouth not yet having unified into a single piece. The bloody shadows that had been reforming into my face manipulated my shattered teeth and broken bits of jaw into three separate mouths, each grinning with malformed fragments of bone. I twisted my neck and inhaled the billowing mess of starlight that was carrying my broken bits back into my face, massaging my newly reformed jaw as I walked towards the back of the broken chariot. I blasted out the bent in rear hatch with a wave of force from my staff and entered the library.

 

As libraries went, it was a good one. Floor to ceiling book shelves, clear signage, potted plants and pretty water features next to the reading nooks, and hurricane Dresden had driven the short-bus straight through the horticulture section. It was all covered in dust and cobwebs, but it was one of the largest collections I’d ever seen. I picked up the nearest book from the floor and had a moment of utter shame as it practically dissolved in my fingers. A combination of extreme age and exposure to water turned it to pulpy mush. “Ammit… do I want to know how old these books are?”

 

“Best guess?” Ammit replied, handing me a small brick she’d pulled from the chariot’s wall. “Over five thousand years old.”

 

“Over?” I tip-toed over another pile of ruined books, hoping against hope that when they dried there might be something salvageable left over.

 

“Well – they’re from before Koschei coming back to Earth.” Ammit gestured to the multitude of texts. “Koschei isn’t the bookish type. He wasn’t writing this. He certainly hasn’t been down here to read it. Look at the dust.”

 

She was right, outside the stream of liquid coming from the broken water feature the tile floor was utterly covered in millennia of dust. The river pouring out the broken window seemed less like a clean floor and more like a window into a previous epoch. She pointed at the brick. “Come on Warden. Find where the jackass is so we can get out of this place before the Asgard actually manage to win this battle.”

 

“They weren’t doing a great job of that when last I saw.” I pointed at a flaming hulk of alien metal as it careened down to the moon’s surface and exploded in a plume of nuclear fire that subsequently imploded into nothingness.

 

“The Asgard keep their oldest and most incapable craft on their borders.” Ammit shrugged. “The Bilskirnir were in service back in their first war against us. They’ve modernized them, but it is far from their most capable hull type in service. We have not merited the use of their actually capable ships since the Folly. Once the Asgard decide this merits more than a token use of force, it will end poorly for Koschei.”

 

“They’re losing because they don’t take Koschei seriously?” I cringed. “That’s a lot of death to learn that he’s serious.”

 

“It’s the Asgard.” Ammit rolled her eyes. “If those ships are even manned it is only a single mind controlling the fleet, and likely not the only copy of that mind. No captain, no crew – no risk.”

 

“How do you have a ship without a crew?” I blinked in confusion. Goa’uld technology always required at least some interface between machine and man.

 

“How should I know? If I were as clever as an Asgard I wouldn’t have lost a war to keep a single planet.” She tapped the brick with a claw. “Use the device.”

 

I looked at it and realized that I was looking at a wire frame map of the city we were standing in, a skeletal image of room we stood inside of that when manipulated with my fingers showed more or less of the city. As I twisted buttons and knobs it panned up and down the city, allowing me to maneuver through Buyan. Glowing motes of light shown to greater or lesser degrees based off of the creature in question. Humans showed up as white, Kincaid showed up as a shimmering grey, Ammit as a glowing green, and I appeared as golden triangle icon rather than the circular images for the rest.

 

The bright orange inverted triangles that seemed to be pouring out of every nook and cranny of Buyan and bee lining their way down to the library seemed to bode poorly, judging by that iconography of a tiny skull marked on each triangle. I pointed my staff at the door and shouted “Incoming” as the first of the orange triangles came into plain view.

 

It was an ugly, misshapen thing with only a passing illusion of humanity to it. Unnaturally wide jaws, jagged shark-like teeth, wide shoulders, sharp talons, and a persistent scent of carrion and decay, there are few creatures as ugly or loathsome as a ghoul. They’re tough, mean, and damn difficult to kill.

 

I felt a wave of manic, murderous glee from my mantle at the edge of my mind my eye twitched reflexively – mirroring the uncontrollably wide grin on my face as a wave of adrenaline ran through my system. I realized that I was laughing like a lunatic as I clutched my face with my talon tipped gauntlet, runnels of blue-green fire pouring from my mouth and eyes to pool on the ground beneath my feet. “Ghouls Ammit – he has a city full of ghouls.”

 

“Yes, Warden.” Ammit spoke cautiously, holding up her hand to stop Muminah as she moved to approach me. “But we can take them. They’re not impossible – ”

 

“They’re perfect!” I cackled, drunk in the madness of my mantle. It’s intoxicating power flowing through me as it and I agreed entirely upon the necessary course of action to take.

 

The poor bastard never had a chance.

 

Magic is something you have to believe to make it work. The more you feel that something ought to be true, the more you are able to tap into the fundamental forces of the universe to impose that reality upon the world around you. And there are few things I feel quite so firmly as that the only good ghoul is a dead ghoul. I dislike Vampires. I disagree with Warlocks. I discourage Necromancers. I hate ghouls. There is a special place in my heart full of utter contempt for ghouls that only Moloch seemed to have pierced thus far.

 

Ghouls like inflicting pain. They’ll feed on a victim while that person is still alive, as though the screams just add flavor to their meal. They’re the low rent scum of the supernatural world, willing to kill anyone for damn near any reason. I’d nearly been eaten by a ghoul more than once – and seen too many of their victims to ever tolerate one in my presence.

 

So when I tapped into the well of power from my mantle and bellowed “Fulminos,” the angry predator who’d entered the room didn’t even have a chance to hear the clap of thunder that accompanied the burst of heat and light that vaporized the flesh from his bones and left behind a pile of confused charnel for his compatriots to trip over as I blasted them away with force from my palm foci.

 

I charged ahead with mad glee, burning my way through the terrified second wave of ghouls as they cautiously approached the pile of bodies – cackling out of control as I purged the loathsome creatures. City of the Ancient Gate Builders or not – Ghouls hadn’t been much of a threat to me even when I’d been just a mere Wizard. I was vaguely aware of my compatriots mopping up after me as I ripped and tore my way through the streets of Buyan, cutting bloody burning swathes through the army of ghouls inhabiting it.

 

I lost count of how many I’d killed at some point. Hundreds – maybe thousands, every single room of this damn city seemed to have a ghoul in it. Some died to fire. Some died to frost. Some just died from my talons raking across their throats and ripping out their windpipe. A particularly unfortunate ghoul made the mistake of trying to sneak past me and go for the disrobed priestess.

 

I didn’t kill him – not immediately. I ripped off his arms and legs with blasts of magical force then tossed his screaming body off the side of the city. His screams echoed down till he landed on the city’s shields and slow cooked from the constant stream of energy protecting it. His mangled body bouncing down the inverted dome of energy till an explosion against the shield finally dropped him to the moon’s surface. His body inflated in the vacuum of space bursting into a bubble of fetid flesh and bone to hover in near zero gravity.

 

I was vaguely aware of my compatriots mopping up after me as we went, mercy killings for the ghouls who I’d simply maimed rather than killing outright. I don’t know what it is exactly about ghouls, but I just don’t ever feel guilty about hurting them. I can inflict impossible, horrific amounts of violence on them and never once question the validity of that action.

 

That unity of purpose bound to the rage of god? It is a prescription for some awesome magic in the traditional sense of the word. On instinct I just kept heading towards the largest concentrations of the toughest Ghouls, wagering that Koschei’s inner sanctum was going to be the most heavily guarded spot at the center of the six spokes of the iron snowflake.

 

Apparently even an army of Ghouls has its breaking point. When one of them finally managed to break through my defenses and bash my head in, only for me to grab the axe, rip it out of my own skull, and chop the ghoul in half with the blade burning in the twilight fire of my own blood – the ghoul army seemed to get the message.

 

Terrified ghouls trampled and fought each other in an effort to retreat, those who’d managed to get in line of sight of the violence I could inflict doing their best to battle their way to safety. The terrified, scrambling warriors bit, clawed and hacked at each other – successfully managing to only injure each other and create more concentrated clusters of inhuman monsters for me to char to cinders. The halls of Buyan became a crematorium, confined spaces littered with ash and horribly warped bone that shattered beneath my armored boots.

 

When we finally reached the doors of the inner sanctum and came face to face with a quartet of massive, eight-foot-tall ghouls covered in sharp protrusions of bone and hard carapace beneath their flesh I was wreathed in a billowing cloud of the fallen. Lightning coruscated across my body, rumbling thunder echoing through as I hummed the tune to “Ring around the Rosy.” The prehistoric looking ghouls gave each other a side-long glance from beneath their protruding brow ridges. Recessed eyes flashing with intelligence but not understanding, they frowned at me with tusk filled mouths. Their primitive minds were apparently able to recognize the danger in front of them but unable to allow themselves to bow to a threat physically smaller than they were.

 

“Move.” I snarled. “Move and you live. Stay and you die.”

 

Either they were unable to speak Goa’uld or just too damn stubborn to believe that they could die the way the smaller ghouls had. I cackled as their bodies attempted to reform, bodily fluids and vivisected limbs flowing back together like mercury flowing in reverse, but I just continued to pour my will into the fires consuming them. They were ripped apart by inches in the flickering silver torrent of flames that poured out from my staff. Actual hands and fingers shaped like my own gauntlet covered ones dragged the screaming bodies of the ghouls back into the blaze as they impotently tried to crawl to safety. I crooned as they immolated, “Ashes – ashes you all fall down!”

 

As the last bubbling pile of molten mercury turned to immolated ash, I blasted through the now molten hot bulkhead of Koschei’s inner sanctum. The thick metal door bowed inward like wet paper, flinging molten motes across a wide arboretum. They smoldered in the deep pond, sending smoke into the air to combine with the charnel cloud of bone dust that accompanied my arrival as I looked on a huge, hale, green oak tree.

 

I looked back at my companions, all of whom were covered in dust, blood, and other fluids I didn’t want to consider. They were all looking at me with a mixed bag of confusion, fear, reverence, and astonishment to varying degrees. Even Kincaid looked suitably wary.

 

“Everyone picks part of the ground around the tree.” I intoned, kneeling down to the pool to splash water on my face. The cool water felt blissfully against the caked in layer of corpse dust. “We’ve got a chest to find.”

 

It wasn’t until after I’d issued the command that I realized that I wasn’t sure what language I’d been speaking when they’d all just leapt to obeying it without question.


	39. Chapter 39

The chest wasn’t particularly hidden, all things considered. Beneath a mound of dark soil that smelled of moss and rainwater was a carved wooden chest wrapped in thick bands of iron and gold. The soil was loose, parting easily as the Russians dug it up with their bare hands. I towered over them as I did so, consciously ignoring Ammit as she looked at me with an expression of pointed concern.

 

I had used the mantle, which meant that I had risked my life. There was a talking to in my future from the Eater of Sin, but not till we could be alone. Ammit wasn’t about to break the image of my unquestionable power – not in front of my head priestess. Certainly not when we were this close to victory.

 

“Lord Warden.” Muminah asked nervously, shivering in the cool air of the arboretum as she stepped out of the pond. Her wet body dripped on the floor, dark skin purged of the later of corpse dust that marked the rest of us. I felt the mantle’s quick assessment that she was beautiful, but in a clinical – appreciative way. It was as one might notice a painting or a statue rather than a breathing person.

 

Small mercies, my mantle didn’t have much in the way of libido. It might hate Ghouls as much as I did, but it did think above the waistline. That clarity was greatly appreciated given the very human, very primal reaction my body was having to the recent carnage I’d been through. My inner caveman was not so politely reminding me that the naked woman next to me would happily let me take here there on the grass, claiming her flesh inches from the inevitable victory over koschei.

 

I shook away that idle thought and addressed my high priestess. “Yes Muminah. What do you need?”

 

“My lord - what are we digging up exactly?” She shivered, brushing gently over parts of her to get rid of lingering droplets of water that were… distracting to say the least. It probably wasn’t a wise idea to tap into the mantle to kill my libido, but I needed to have this conversation at eye level if you get my drift.

 

“Koschei has been a fixture in the mythology of the first world for as long as anyone cares to remember.” I gestured to the large chest as Kincaid and the Colonel got on either side of it, lifting the handles with obvious exertion. The other three Russians had to help the Colonel, he was not strong enough to lift his side unaided. Either that chest was very poorly balanced or the merc had a lot more muscle than I’d previously credited him with. “He put his soul in a needle, inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside that iron chest.”

 

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in the specifics of a legend.” Ammit waved it off idly. “Even if all that is true, they never quite manage to tell the story right after a few generations.”

 

“Oh, I’m not expecting wishes for grabbing the needle,” I smiled. “But it’s at least a starting point.”

 

Vallarin looked up at me as he fiddled with the iron straps binding the chest shut. He stuttered nervously in Russian, addressing our conference in the Goa’uld language as one might speak with an angry dragon. “Uh - is there some special precaution we should be taking? Something to not die when I open this?”

 

“Good question.” I waved him to the side, kneeling next to the chest as I opened my sight. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

 

Wizards have the ability to see things as they truly are - complete and without illusion. The Third Eye is a useful but extremely dangerous skill. Sure it lets you see enchantments or cut through illusions, but it will also show you horrors beyond human understanding or beauty so cutting that it can drive a man to despair.

 

That’s the problem with the sight. You see things as they are but once you’ve seen that truth, it is with you forever. You don’t forget it. It doesn’t get better with time. You just have that truth, in its entirety, without any possibility for things to get better. Practitioners who use their sight incautiously end up gibbering mad men - incurably insane.

 

My sight didn’t show me horrors or joys as I looked at the box. It just showed me wood. I was certain that this was the proper container - the ancient surface of the box was lovingly covered in the carved letters of the language of the Gate Builders. But they weren’t runes or sigils or anything that one might have expected for something this portentous.

 

It was just a box. No runes, no spells, not enchantments of any kind. It pulsed with a subtler power to it, the sort of magic that had nothing to do with spellwork and everything to do with a parent’s love. I’d seen that sort of power before, in a crib that Michael had made for his child with his bare hands. I let go of my sight and brushed the loose earth from the writing, reading the inscription aloud in English as I muddled through the gate builder’s blocky letters.

 

“To my beloved Koschei, may you keep your dreams within.” I ran a talon along the letters as I spoke, reading from left to right. “You are all that is good in my life, I love you my child.”

 

I scratched away the last of the dirt, “Its signed Amelius. That mean anything to you Ammit?”

 

“No, Warden, I am not intimated into the family dynamics of Koschei the Deathless.” Ammit growled. “And If I’m honest, I’m far more interested in why you know First World bedtime stories about where Koschei keeps his soul but still don’t remember the gate address to your own planet without referencing your wrist device.”

 

“A lot of the symbols look very samey.” I griped standing up from the box and turning to the Colonel. I addressed him in Russian. “I need one of your men to open the box. When he does we’re going to need to catch the hare that comes out of it.”

 

“You are expecting this hare to be alive and mobile after digging it up from under a tree?” The Colonel replied acerbically.

 

“A crocodile the size of a small city nearly ate you while you flew in an ancient Egyptian spaceship through Hell. How about taking some of this on faith, Ivan?” I waved at the bindings. “Now, are you going to cut the bindings or what?”

 

“Alexi.” The Colonel grumbled, pulling a knife from his combat webbing and kneeling next to the chest. As he did so Vallarin mirrored his action on the other side. “My name is Alexi, not Ivan. Or do you prefer that I call you Mr. Viper.”

 

“Only if you promise to do it in your best Sean Connery impression.” I aimed my staff at the chest, funneling power into my staff so that runnels of silver fire poured out the intricate carvings to sizzle along the gem encrusted surface of it. Ammit stood on my left with her hand device, nodding in approval to Kincaid who held up his automatic weapon. Whatever came out of that box was going to get a boatload of hurt.

 

The russians cut loose the bindings and tipped the chest forward, scurrying away from its contents as they rolled forward. I caught a glimpse of fur and beady, black eyes before Kincaid had unloaded the contents of his magazine into the thing that tumbled out. Fur, felt, and stuffing plumed out into the air as a three foot tall stuffed hare met military grade 39mm ammunition.

 

We all stared at the stuffed animal in befuddlement - waiting for something to happen. The stuffed animal didn’t oblige. It just sat there, looking at us with betrayed shoe-button eyes that twinkled with the reflected glow of my staff as I poked it. It made a pathetic squeak as I prodded it with my staff. I briefly contemplated the series of poor decisions in my life that had lead me up to this point as I cautiously picked up the stuffed hare by its ears, turning it around and examining what of it remained.

 

I nearly screamed when the shoebutton eyes blinked at me.

 

The animated construct of a hare bit down on my gauntlet, ceramic teeth somehow managing to rip through my armor and nearly piercing the skin. Ammit tore the angry hare away from me as it’s felt paws ripped at me - ensorcelled nails raking at me with blue-green motes of light that clashed against the magical protections in my armor.

 

The hare kicked her in the jaw hard enough to draw blood as it spun in the air, spreading out a gravity defly cloud of stuffing that it ran along to get it up into the branches of the green oak. Kincaid and the Russians opened fire on the creature as it went, bullets ripping through the constructs body with accuracy but little in the way of effectiveness. The problem with constructs was that as long as you didn’t damage the underlying magics animating them, there really isn't much that you could to to “hurt” them. They weren’t alive, just animated to appear so. So while it seemed like the hare was laughing at the Russians and taunting them by hopping from tree to tree, that was just the sick humor of the man who’d enchanted it.

 

The not-hare turned it’s back on us, lifted its fluffy tail, and projectile fired a series of flaming green buttons at us from its backside. They rained down on us like mortar rounds, burning with the fire of a sun and smelling like - well, you know - what comes out of the backside of a hare. Apparently several thousand years of time to prepare one’s defenses doesn’t prevent an ancient evil from being juvenile.

 

And that was coming from me.

 

It wasn’t dignified to jump into a lake to escape from a rain of explosive, projectile-poo but dignity hasn’t ever been especially high on the Dresden to-do list. I hefted Muninah over my shoulder and jumped into the pond, using a gust of sorcerous wind to shield us from the molten spray of fecal matter. As my head burst out from under water I was greeted by the screams of Ammit.

 

The goddess had thrown her body over Vallarin, protecting the boy from a blast that he’d failed to dodge. The Russian boy’s leg had caught in a branch when he’d tried to follow his compatriots into the water and he’d fallen to the ground. Her back sizzled with a mix of putrid flames and glowing green blood.

 

Kincaid had dodged the blast but managed to get a grenade up into the green oak. The fragmentation grenade did little to damage the hare but quite effectively dislodged the tree-branch it had been standing on. The animated creature squealed in imitation fear as it dropped to the ground, then burrowed its way beneath the soil in an instant. It swam through the earth towards kincaid, bursting from the ground and latching on to the man’s shoulder with a blind fury.

 

Bood spurted from the mercenary’s body as the ensorceled claws raked across the man’s chest, ripping through flesh and bone with casual ease. Kincaid howled in agony as he stabbed blindly at the construct with a knife, struggling to find the creature’s weak point. I blasted the creature off of Kincaid with my staff as I charged out of the lake, screaming “Forzare.”

 

The hare spin through the air then plunged back into the ground, swimming away through the earth. I punged my staff down into the tunnel and screamed “Wabbit Season!” at the top my my lungs as I poured fire into the tunnel after the construct. There weren’t a whole lot of sure-fire ways to get rid of a construct, but I was willing to wager that whatever was keeping that thing going would be flammable.

 

There was a loud scream from beneath the ground as the construct died, and then a sudden rush of magical energies. I groaned, clenching my teeth in anticipation as I turned to face the location of where those energies were pooling. I barked an abrupt order to the Russians as there was a sudden glow of white light from beneath the waters. “Get out! Get out of the water immediately!”

 

“What is that?” Ammit growled as she helped Vallarin to his feet. The man stumbled, having to balance himself against tree with Muminah’s help from an apparently broken ankle.

 

“Duck season.” I replied, putting myself between the source of the energy and my compatriots as the waters swelled and a truly massive creature was displaced from the nevernever. Birds are the sort of thing that only manage to be cute by virtue of how small they are relative to human beings. Honestly - they’re actually pretty nasty animals. I’d read somewhere that the dinosaurs who managed to survive had eventually turned into what we now know as birds.

 

If you’ve ever lived on a farm, that sounds pretty plausible.

 

Ebeneezer had ducks on his farm. They seemed cute at first. They were certainly more agreeable than the swans had been, but the truth is that ducks are just downright ornrey. They’ll murder each other for no clear reason and drown their partner midway through mating with them - just because they can. Mating season is effectively a horror movie with feathers and more quacking.

 

And you can never suprise a duck. They’ve got three hundred and sixty degree vision and they are always, always watching. Sneak up on a duck. I dare you. Hunters use duck blinds and hide their scent for a reason.

 

The thing that rose from the water was less daffy and a lot more doom. The three story tall murder mallard broke through the water with a thunderous hunting cry, its echoing basso thunderous in the arboretum. The water around it bubbling and boiling as it swam, lightning shimmered beneath razor sharp plumage.

 

I extended the wall of energy from my shield as far as I dared. An invisible dome spread out from my outstretched fingers snapping up barely in time to meet the blaring wave of light and force that came out of the mallards open maw. Serrated fangs along the bill flexed as it screamed an angry quack of fury.

 

Ammi pole vaulted over my shield with the branch Kincaid’s grenade had knocked down. Taking advantage of the ducks momentum, she soared through the air and landed - talons first - on the ducks bill.

 

I let go of my shield as the duck’s abrupt attack, the agonized mallard having been forced to deal with the angry demoness clawing at it's eyes. It spat out bolts of lightning seemingly at random as Ammit tore one of the orbs from its skull to dangle to the ground. Kincaid and the Russians peppered the creature's side with bullets, sending plumes of spellfire out the creature's side. It's flesh melted and warped where steel hit it, fairy flesh trying to reject the touch of iron.

 

I grinned maniacally at that, raising my helmet. Bullets weren't going to be big enough to kill a fairy that large, but I had a ferrous object large enough to do some damage. I straddled my wizard's staff, grabbed on firmly with both hands, and released the remaining energy stored up in my staff.

 

A Dresden sized hole blew out the back of the titanic mallard as the war-duck collapsed on the islands shore. I made an inelegant belly flop into the water, groaning at the sensation of every bone in my entire body breaking at once. I nearly passed out from the pain as Muminah fished my armored body out of the water, struggling with the weight of me. I indulged in a brief moment of unconsciousness as the pain of my bones forcibly healing completed with the pain of broken bones dragging along the shore.

 

When I woke, it was to the sight of the Russians slowly advancing on the deflating duck. It's feathers and flesh were melting away to reveal a Sidhe lady with only one eye and a massive hole in her chest, mirroring the wounds inflicted on the duck.

 

I struggled to my feet, shambling over to the dying fairy. She had been beautiful once - her ragged and mangled flesh was formerly attached to a black woman wearing the garlands and vines of Summer. She desperately clutched a golden egg to her breast, weeping openly as she died.

 

“Crap.” This wasn't part of the plan. “Stand down, stand down!”

 

Sure, she was a villainous shape-shifting sidhe lady, but she was a girl. I put myself between her and the Russians before the could finish her off, examining her as I tried to place her in the fairy courts. Coming up blank, I asked her directly. “Who are you and why are you protecting a monster like Koschei?”

 

She laughed, blood running over dark green lips as her remaining gold-flecked green iris grew cloudy. “I am Marzanna. And I am Sidhe. I pay my debts.”

 

“Koschei, he bargained with you.” I looked at the egg still clutched in her death-grip. “Seems like you got the raw end of that deal dying for that prick.”

 

“A godmother is there to guide her charge.” Tears welled in her undamaged eye. “Would that I had been able to heal the child's hurts. But a godmother cannot unmake a father's will even if the mother should bargain for it.”

 

“Mother Winter hired you?” Ok, maybe the price had been worth dying for. The Eldest Queen of Winter probably paid one hell of a boon.

 

“She feared that the boy's father was too cruel, too callous.” Her skin was growing pale as she struggled to speak. “She was right. The things that child sacrificed - what he did - no child should have to do.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?” I shook my head. “He had a crappy home life. Big whoop. He's a monster and I'm still going to kill him.”

 

She laughed, a hollow, horrifying laugh. “Good luck.”

 

And then she died.

 

I pried the egg from her hands, crushing its metallic shell in my gauntlet to reveal a thin needle within it. My teeth practically rattled at the sheer power within it as I handed it over to Ammit. She looked down at it in curiosity, “What is this?”

 

“That, Ammit, is Koschei's soul.” I smiled wickedly. “That is how we beat him.”


	40. Chapter 40

There was a loud screeching noise like a kettle that had been left on the fire followed by three massive bangs of what might have been thunder as Ammit took the needle into her hand. The thin, iron strand turned a feverish glowing white as the banging noises continued, louder and louder. Bang - screech, bang - screech, the sounds of rending metal and howling grew louder and louder as the needle shone bright enough that it was painful to look at.

 

“Nobody shoot.” I snarled as I connected the sounds with the only thing they really could be connected to. “We have the needle. We’re in charge. He’s going to try to trick us. To fool us into playing his game. Do not indulge him.”

 

My voice had once again began to modulate, reverberating in the tones of the Goa’uld in three languages in… uh - I guess that’s not stereo is it? Tri-eo? Damn it - words aren’t really designed to express this sort of thing because it isn’t the sort of thing normal people do. I spoke in three languages, expressing my intent fluently in each. Apparently my mantle was tired of repeating itself.

 

Kincaid nodded, shouldering his weapon and lifting it in preparation for violence but keeping his finger off the trigger. I suppose that’s what passed for diplomatic in the mercenary’s mind.

 

The Russians all followed suit, with the exception of Marchenko. Marchenko let his weapon hang loose on it’s shoulder strap and pulled out a small box of cigarettes. He patted the box on the palm of his hand, jiggling out one of the tightly wrapped bundles of tobacco leaves and letting it loosely hang from his lips as he patted for a lighter.

 

“Marchenko - ready your weapon!” Hissed the Colonel as the rending sounds of metal became deafening and the screeching hiss started to form into words. The howling fury of Koschei was horrific as he screamed in incoherent rage.

 

“Colonel - with respect - we are in a magical city on the moon fighting spacecraft currently losing a battle to wooden ships floating on shadow.” Marchenko pulled his lighter out from his pocket and fiddled with it, trying to get a spark going on the well-worn device. He puffed at the cigarette as it lit, pumping air through the tobacco to ensure it burned properly. Taking a long drag from the cigarette he closed the lighter with a loud click and held out the box of cigarettes to his compatriots. “We are standing behind two creatures that call themselves gods who’ve given us ample cause to believe their claims while a demon from the nightmares of children comes to kill us. I’m not going to do anything until I’ve had a cigarette.”

 

The Colonel’s eye twitched as his natural urge to discipline the Lieutenant for insubordination warred with the obvious absurdity of his situation. In the end absurdity won and he pulled a cigarette from the pack and took the lighter from the Lieutenant’s hands.

 

I would have found it funny if I weren’t so damn scared.

 

Mother Winter’s bouncing baby boy ripped through the ceiling of the room we were in, the green-black light of his mordite blade tearing through the bulkhead with contemptuous ease. He’d gotten dressed since I last saw him - which was at least a small mercy - wrapping himself in the fine silks and garments that one might have expected out of a medieval lord. They billowed out around him, only managing to make him look more emaciated and decrepit as they billowed around his corpse like contenance.

 

His eyes were insane and there was white froth billowing out from his lips as he soared through the air, body elongating as it twisted through the skies. He spun, serpentine, landing in a haphazard mess of monster on spindly legs as his ancient jowls quivered with hatred. I could hear his arthritic knuckles popping as he white-knuckle clutched at the blade.

 

“You dare to come to my home?” He screeched in that petulant, grating, raspy excuse for a voice that echoed with an ancient infantile hatred. He glared at Ammit, monofocused on the needle between her fingers as he growled. “You who fled screaming into the night? You who cheat and lie?”

 

“Ok kidnappy McGee - how about you not throw stones into other people’s houses while your kettle is still pretty darn black.” I replied to him, and realized that there was now a fourth language in the rotation. It wasn’t latin - I’d learned enough latin before the gift of gab to know what wasn’t latin, even if I didn’t recognize what it was. “So how about you stop posturing or Ammit breaks your soul.”

 

You’d have thought I kicked him in the nuts from the expression on the man’s face as I spoke in that language. His head whipped over to me in a flurry of jowls and liver spots, examining me with beady eyes. He sniffed the air twice and smiled. “Ah - AH - HAH! The other cheat… yes, yes - it finally makes sense. I finally understand. I should have guessed. Yes… yes I’m sure.”

 

“Yeah - I’ll be honest there skippy. I don’t give a shit if you understand except if you understand to give us back the kids or we kill your ass.” I flipped him off. It was childish and not my best insult, but I really just hated this creep too much to waste good material on him. “Where are the women you took.”

 

“Oh, Heka.” The man chortled. “Are you feeling left out?”

 

I blinked. “You think I’m Heka?”

 

“I know you’re Heka.” Koschei tapped his head with a skeletally long finger. “I should have realized it at first. Given your company and your capturer - yes… it has been so long that I hardly recognized you, apprentice. You have grown in power, child, but you overstep your position. I was using magic before your people wriggled out from the muck and mire - you are a pretender while I am a master.”

 

If that wasn’t a straight line, I didn’t know what was. “Only a master of evil, Darth. Now, I’m not going to ask again. Show me where they are!”

 

Koschei’s shark like grin was going to haunt my nightmares. The geriatric knelt down and reached into his own shadow, pulling upward to summon a current of billowing darkness like the currents that had borne the galleys outside. It congealed to something like a mirror before he reached into it, yanking out a woman’s form. The shadows ripped away from her, discarding her on the ground - naked.

 

Warden Nanami collapsed to the ground as she was expelled from the shadow, legs crumpling beneath her. She crumpled to the ground, hugging her legs to her chest and shivering. There was a terrible emptiness to her. A woman who’d been so full of life and strength when last I’d seen her, the pitiful person now before me could only be passingly mistaken for the Brute Squad Wizard she’d been.

 

“Tell them, little pet.” Koschei grabbed her by the hair, lifting her to dangle from his grip as he sing song crooned into the woman’s ear. She made no effort to resist him, or even move, as he dangled from his hand. Her arms and legs waving the air gave her the appearance of a of a grotesque marionette, expressionless and mute. “Tell them about the others. Let them know about the toys I haven’t played with yet.”

 

He shook her before dropping her back to the ground, making no effort to cusion her fall as he let go of the woman’s limp body. He shrugged. “Sorry - I can’t seem to find someone who knows where they are. More’s the pity.”

 

Ammit bent the needle - not enough to break it, but enough to make the light emanating from it flicker. Koschei fell to the ground as she did so, kneeling in apparent pain. He dropped the mordite blade, and felt to the ground next to his victim. The goddess’ voice quavered with fury as she said. “Muminah, come here.”

 

“Milady?” Replied the priestess as she walked over to the goddess.

 

“Muminah, please take this from me. If he fights back or resists in any way - break it.” Ammit handed the needle to the priestess. “If we have to kill him - when we kill him. I want it to be a mortal woman who killed him. I want him to know it was a mortal woman who killed him.”

 

Brilliant viridian light shone from her eyes as she grabbed the geriatric by the front of his robes, lifted him, and drove her talons into the man’s belly. Black blood bubbled up from the man’s lips as he swore impotently, howling as the goddess stabbed him four times in succession. He hissed through blood soaked lips. “Hateful bitch!”

 

“Don’t I know it.” Ammit replied, twisting her claws. “There’s two ways we can play this, Koschei. You can give us the women and I’ll let the Warden stick you in the coldest, darkest, most terrible, forgotten scrap of nothing - I will let him maroon you for eternity in the shadow of a black hole to regret what you’ve done.”

 

“Oh - how tempting.” Koschei giggled madly. “And if I refuse?”

 

“Then we break your needle. Here and now.” I replied. “That was a neat tick you used to stash Warden Nanami. Hell, I don’t know if I’d be able to pull it off to go the other way but I’m willing to bet that your “sister” will be obliged to show me once I let her know that I offed the man who killed her. The Winter Queen isn’t the sort who forgets that kind of insult. Killing you will slow down our recovery, but not stop it.”

 

“You presume much.” Koschi grinned insanely through his parched lips, speaking in sing-song Russian. “She doesn't know how to navigate the shadows. Even the Grimalkin only dares to wander its surface.”

 

“No.” Replied Kincaid, speaking in a voice of dangerous calm. “But Drakul does.”

 

Kincaid’s former employer was the sort of thing that one didn’t bring up in conversation idly. Because he was the sort of thing that would probably hear it when you even mentioned him. It would require something horrific to get anything from the ancient monster who birthed Dracula, but for Ivy Kincaid would pay.

 

Koschei’s eyes bulged in fury as he spat directly into Ammit’s face. “They are mine!”

 

“Muminah.” I didn’t need to say anything else. We’d all pretty much had it with Koschei.

 

My high priestess snapped the iron needle between her fingers, dousing the light within it as Ammit released her bloody prisoner. Shadows billowed out from the man’s open wounds as he staggered away from Ammit, screaming and laughing with equal madness. Power as I’d seldom felt before pulsed through the arboretum as the man staggered drunkenly over to the ancient oak. Power lashed out from him wildly, arcs of billowing shadow slicing through the ground around him with horrific potency.

 

I grabbed Muminah and pulled her back towards the water’s edge, grounding ourselves over it as I watched Koschei’s mad dance of death. His skin bulged and twisted as he reached the oak, pressing his forehead against the surface of it as his horrific cackling shook the bows of the ancient plant. And then the pit of my stomach fell somewhere south of Hades as I realized that Koschei wasn’t dying.

 

In point of fact, he was doing exactly the opposite.

 

His joker-screech peel of mad laughter went from a rasping memory of what laughter had been to a deep baritone, rumbling like distant thunder on a winter’s morning. His aging skin stretched taught as muscle filled into the dangling flesh, liver-spots dissolving into milky-white flesh. His skeletal finger gouged out long furrows of the tree as he howled, not in pain - but in victory.

 

He rounded on me, his eyes entirely mad as he crooned with horrific joy - grinning from ear to ear with dagger-sharp teeth. The young man who now faced me looked closer to fifty rather than the ancient being I knew him to be, the whispering kiss of shadows billowing from beneath his garments. “Oh - Heka. Do you have any idea how long it has taken me to trick someone into breaking my godmother’s curse?”

 

“Oh - fuck!” I snarled, barely bringing up my shield bracelet in time to block the torrent of ensorceled lighting that cracked out from the air in front of him. There had been no word, no gesture, no apparent effort of any kind. Koschei had summoned a bolt of power with sheer, unbridled will.

 

The ancient horror just ignored the Russians and Kincaid as they opened fire on him, continuing his mad cackle as he summoned lightning. He leisurely walked over to his blade, picking it up from the ground before looking at the gobsmacked Ammit. He snapped his fingers while looking her straight in the eyes, summoning a wave of power. “I told you - over and over, I told you. You would come to serve me, dear demoness.”

 

As the man’s fingers met there was a sudden expulsion of power and glowing crystals of ice began to encase the men firing upon him. The Vallarin screamed, opening fire on the implacable crystals as they spread up him. The crystals only spread faster from his actions, kinetic energy seeming to empower them to greater rates of movement. The crystal extended up and over the man’s head in an instant - turning him to a statue. The Colonel and Kirensky suffered little better, the ice getting as far as their faces in moments.

 

Only Marchenko managed to avoid his fate. The man had dropped his weapon when the ice began, choosing instead to dig a long furrow in the dirt as the ice climbed his legs - creating a hasty circle around himself. He pricked his hand, breaking the link between the ice and the man casting it. It didn’t dispell the ice that had already formed, but it seemed to do a decent job of stemming its flow. He was no less trapped than his compatriots, but at least he could move somewhat.

 

The other three Russians were frozen into living statues. Immobile and terrified but seemingly aware of their surroundings. Their eyes darted back and forth in horror behind their icy prisons.

 

Kincaid smashed a bottle of something foul against the ice on his legs, and made a bounding leap towards Koschei. He pulled a long tube from his combat webbing and twisted at the tube’s center, ripping the tube open and pointing the open ends at Koschei. Two concentrated beams of green flame fired out from them, tearing through the flesh of Koschei’s abdomen. He screamed as they contacted him, holding out his palm and screaming a single word in reply. Blue light ran up the outline of the flames and up to the man holding them, slowing everything within them to an utter crawl. Koschei twisted off the spears of flame, black smoke pouring from his already healing wounds as the mercenary was trapped in perpetual slow motion.

 

I took advantage of his distraction, sending a wave of force at him - focusing my might into a dime sized point on the back of his skull. My magic just disappeared into a great, hungering emptiness. He didn’t dispel it so much as his presence just dismissed it entirely.

 

He turned, doubtlessly to gloat, only to get my staff rammed straight into his face. He rocked back from the impact against his jaw, staggering away from me and spitting out several teeth. Confused and dazed, he jumped away from me in an effort to regain his bearings. I didn’t give him the chance.

 

People seem to expect someone who casts magic to just hang out at a distance and fling magic missiles at them. Sure, the stereotype is at least somewhat founded in fact. There were plenty of magic users who weren’t willing to get up close and personal with their enemy. There were even more Goa’uld who eschewed personal risk entirely. But there was nothing obligating either a Wizard or a Goa’uld from getting close and personal if they were so inclined. And with my Goa’uld enhanced strength - I could get damn personal.

 

I stomped on the ground, breaking a hole where he was trying to step back and staggering him. It wasn’t much of an advantage but it was enough for Ammit to get in and slash the man’s face - plucking out one of his eyes. The gorged out flesh turned to black smoke, billowing back into his skin as she tore into his flesh. She ripped, she tore, and she rendered - but ultimately it wasn’t enough to overcome whatever power had earned Koschei the title of “Deathless.”

 

There was an awful snicker-snack of the mordite blade and Ammit staggered away from Koschei, falling to her knee in a glowing pool of Unas blood. Her severed arm dissolved into ash where it hit the ground, barely having saved her from being disemboweled. She screamed in agony as she held her belly shut with the other arm.

 

I barely had time to scream, “Don’t!” Before Muminah placed herself between the goddess and Koschei, throwing herself at the Scion of Winter with a warrior’s scream. She kicked the scion where it hurt, tattoo’s blazing with power as she waded through the sizzling cloud of shadow. Koschei’s eyes crossed as he batted her away, backhanding her across the face.

 

I watched Muminah hit the tree, cracking her head against the wood hard enough to knock her senseless. She hit the ground, barely breathing as crimson blood ran down from her forehead. I put my rage and hate into a bellow of “Fuego” casting fire at Koschei. I knew the fire wouldn’t do much to him, not with his apparent ability to just dismiss magic. But that wasn’t the point of it.

 

Elements once summoned tended to follow the governing laws of those same elements. So if one summoned a torrent of fire, even fire that wouldn’t burn the target, one could still rely on the brilliance of that same flame. I summoned the hottest fire I could manage, scourging a path between me and Koschei in the hopes of using it to cloak my approach. Beating Koschei with a heavy stick seemed to work well enough last time, so I tapped into my inner Neanderthal and smashed the place where I expected Koschei to be.

 

My staff went through the air with enough force to shatter concrete, piercing the cloak of flames and landing in a glassy pile of shattered sand as it hit with the full force of my rage and hatred. I was pretty sure I could have slain an Ogre with that hit.

 

Too bad it hadn’t hit Koschei.

 

There was a sudden whoosh of of a blade through the air, a thunk of blade on flesh, and my head tumbled to the ground. I barely had time to think as Koschei drove his blade through both palms and into the belly of my decapitated body, crucifying it to the tree with the mordite blade. The pain of it was immeasurable.

 

I realized that the person screaming was me about ten seconds after I started. Mordite apparently couldn’t kill me, but it really hurt. Koschei picked up my head, crooning in sing song as he tapped his long finger against my head. “Little god, little god, sing your song. Little god, little god, soon your friends will sing along.”

 

There was a blur of motion from where Ammit was kneeling and a glowing, wriggling bit of what looked like intestine soared past Koschei’s head. He barely had time to dodge the fleshly projectile as it spattered Unas blood across his face and my own. Koschei looked from the disgusting pile of meat that landed on the ground next to Warden Nanami and back to Ammit. His lip curled. “Pathetic.”

 

Koschei held up his hand and spoke four words. They were skittering things, more like the sounds an insect might make with it’s mandibles than human speech. A purple sphere flew from his fingertips, about the size of a golf ball - reeking of black magic. “I seem to recall someone mentioning a black hole. I think that you’re right, little goddess - a black hole makes for a marvelous punishment.”

 

The projectile moved with maddening slowness, inching towards Ammit as Koschei continued his nightmarish rhyme, increasing with tempo as the ball got closer. “Little god, little god, sing your song. Little god, little god, soon your friends will sing along.”

 

I begged, pleased with the powers of the universe for something - anything to stop what I knew was going to happen once that thing touched Ammit. Please - someone help her!

 

Ammit made a rude gesture with her remaining arm, only able to manage a defiant snarl at this point. Words were apparently beyond her given the extreme pain she had to be in. She never once wavered in her defiance and spite as the spell touched her flesh, even as the extreme gravity of that pink ball collapsed her in on herself. I watched, impotent to help, as the goddess Ammit - who had survived wars and horrors beyond description - died in defiant agony.

 

And in that moment I, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, lost my mind. The Mantle of the Warden struggled to match my utter contempt and urge to destroy as I struggled against the blade crucifying me. I barely recognize the horrific sounds coming from my own lips as speech as the deep noises of the Goa’uld turned into a hissing torrent of sounds more akin to a dial-up modem that the threats of violence I knew them to be.

 

The Oak responded to my power, vines and boughs bending to protect their master, trapping the vengeance I would rightfully mete out to him at the first chance I got. I was going to do things to Koschei that the Old Testament would have considered “a little bit much.”

 

But my fury only seemed to amuse Koschei. “Creature - you are not of my blood. You cannot escape my tree.”

 

Koschei dropped my head unceremoniously on the ground, kicking it with his foot to angle it so that I had no choice but to watch as he pulled a sack from his waist. I helplessly watched as Koschei stuffed Warden Nanami back into the sack, watching as she disappeared into it head first. Her lifeless eyes looked at me without any shred of hope, her lips stained from the gore of the Unas’ intestines. My eyes bulged as he walked over to Muminah, casting a spell upon her to ensure that she was conscious and aware when the bag went down over her head.

 

“I’m going to make you eat your own heart!” I snarled, breathing a wave of green fire up at Koschei that only dissipated across his skin.

 

“Heka, dear demon. You will do no such thing.” Koschei clucked his tongue against his teeth. “Because you will be too occupied to even think of trying such violence upon me. For as much as you think you hate me, it is nothing compared to how much the Winter Lady hates you.”

 

Koschei carried me over to the ruins of Ammit, wetting his fingers in her glowing blood and using it to draw out a circle on the ground before speaking the three words he meant to be my undoing.

 

“Maeve, Maeve, Maeve.”


	41. Chapter 41

The Winter Lady appeared in the short of overt, wasteful, and incautious display of power I'd come to expect from Winter's heir apparent. The water of the arboretum froze in an instant, the sudden explosion of heat from the room turning the balmy climate into a subarctic snowscape. What had previously been humidity in the air coalesced into angry clouds, sleet and hail pelting the ground.

 

I would have expected the cold to be just one hurt to add to the litany I was currently undergoing, but I barely noticed it. Winter's touch upon my mantle welcomed the cold - the sleet upon my skin a welcome balm against the pain of crucifixion.

 

Maeve was as I had seen her at the battle for the stone table in fairie. Her dreadlocks were tightly bound so as to provide minimal opportunities for someone to grab them but battle had since knocked several of them loose. They hung down over the stylized, snowflake like armor - a rainbow of blue across what had once been pure white.

 

They were pure white no longer. Her gauntlets and breast plate were stained red with the coppery shades of frozen human blood. Lloyd Slate's blood unless I missed my guess.

 

It occurred to me that it was odd that Mab had been the one to have Lloyd Slate with her when the offer had been made to make me the Winter Knight. I hadn't really thought about in the moment, but it had been Maeve who hired Lloyd. That meant that he'd betrayed Maeve as much as he'd betrayed Mab. Hell's bells, probably more than Mab. Aurora was Maeve's direct opposite in Fairy.

 

Siding with her wouldn't just have been treason, it would have been public humiliation. She should have been obligated to mete out vengeance at a scale commensurate with that insult before her mother would even consider interfering in her daughter's efforts to balance the scales.

 

So either Maeve had been unable to deal with that debt of vengeance owed, or there had been an even more important debt to her than the defection of the Winter Knight.

 

My eyes narrowed at that, several details connecting in my head as a plan began to form. My plotting was interrupted by the literal apple that Koschei pulled from his pocket and wedged deep enough into my mouth that I couldn't bite down. My eyes bulged as he plopped my head down onto a literal, silver platter - serving me up to the woman standing in the middle of the glowing circle.

 

“Winter Lady, I believe introductions are in order.” Koschei bowed deeply. “I am Koschei, Lord of Buyan.”

 

Maeve’s exaggerated eye roll managed to combine contempt, exhaustion, boredom, and confusion into seconds. She pulled a white cloth from her belt and wiped at the blood coating her armor, the frozen crimson melting as she ran the silk over it. “Uncle… must you go through this exhausting process with every Winter Lady?”

 

Koschei’s lip twitched, the madness in his eyes pronounced as he clutched the silver platter hard enough for it to bend under his fingers. His voice never wavered as he talked but it held the mad tenor to it that had marked his fits back in Archangel. “Child - I tolerate that you have adopted the role of my niece, but you are not her.”

 

“Semantics.” Maeve scoffed. “I am Maeve, your niece.”

 

“You are not my niece.” Koschei snarled, unable to contain a screech of contempt. Family drama dating back to pre-history coloring his words, the Deathless one’s voice went deadly quiet. “You can’t just replace family.”

 

“No? Odd that you’ve elected to discard it so readily then, Uncle.” Maeve cocked her hips, grinning with devil may care glee. “Do you have any idea what you’ve taken me from? This insult will not be easily forgotten by our Queen or the Mothers. But I suppose you’ve made a policy of insulting them at every chance you get.”

 

Koschei grinned wolfishly. “I had no idea that summoning you would inconvenience your mother. I wouldn’t dare to involve myself in matters from which I’ve been excluded by Winter Law.”

 

“You’ve missed your window to do harm rather than insult, Uncle.” Maeve cackled. The frozen surface of the lake cracked and shifted under the weight of her malice, spikes and spires of frost rising out like serrated stalagmites. “Winter is victorious. The table is ours. And not only have we won that prissy little bitch Aurora is dead as a doornail. And once you break this circle I will return to revel in my victory before you’ve so much as considered doing me actual harm.”

 

“Then, Lady Maeve, allow me to sweeten the glory of victory.” Koschei lifted the platter, jostling my severed head as he held it out to her. “Consider this a testament to your victory.”

 

“And why should I accept a present from you dear Uncle?” Maeve gestured to my crucified form on the tree. My armored body was trapped in an agonized rictus of mortal pain. Star flecked galaxies bled out from my body, seeping across my skin to turn to vapor as they touched the frozen ground. The billowing vapor shimmered, stars and planets hovering in the mist as they returned to my crucified flesh. “What assurance do I have that I will not end up positioned on that tree?”

 

“Maeve, I offer you a pledge of safe conduct. For the next day I will make no attempt to harm you by action or inaction as long as you stand within my arboretum.” He bowed graciously. “You are my guest and will suffer no undue harm.”

 

Maeve considered that for a moment. “And that creature - who is he?”

 

“Heka, my lady.” I don’t know if that smile could have been more creepy if I’d also been able to see the erection that I was positive accompanied it as Koschei spoke. “He who is owed most glorious torment at your hands.”

 

It was probably the skeeviest thing I’d ever heard spoken. Or at least it was right up till Maeve replied with a single word that spoke volumes. “Heka.”

 

The Winter Lady’s pupils dilated reflexively, matching the purr of lust in her voice as she spoke that name. There are entire schools of magic that had less power to them than that word did. Obligation, rage, and the lust for vengeance played upon her frosty lips. “I would have your pledge that once you have given me him, you will do nothing to prevent me from giving him what is owed, Lord Koschei. Heka caused my predecessor great hurt. I will not tolerate any interruptions in the settlement of debts owed for old hurts upon my station.”

 

Koschei clackled madly as he broke the circle by passing the platter over the summoning circle. “Done.”

 

My heart raced furiously as lithe fingers grabbed me by the head, holding me up to eye level so that I could stare into the merciless pits of the Winter Lady. She disregarded Koschei entirely as she addressed my head, talons of ice extending from her armored gauntlets. She sliced away a piece of the apple in my mouth, popping it into her ice-blue lips. I listened to it shatter between her teeth, the sub-zero of her body turning it solid in seconds.

 

“I am not the master of torture my mother is, Lord Warden.” Maeve purred, licking bits of frozen apple from her lips. “I am not fond of waiting. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to make pain last for the ages. But for the hurt done at Djer - the insult, the humiliation, I would see the one responsible suffer for eternity and a day.”

 

She rolled my head between her talons of ice, idly examining it from all sides. I had to clench my eyes shut to stop the dizzy unnatural feeling of my head spinning independently from my body. “I have nightmares about it sometimes. Memories from the Lady who was. She was kinder than I - better in so many ways. And just to make a point - just to prove that they were a threat to Winter’s power, the Goa’uld bound her in iron and violated her with the bane. A simple cut would have proved their point but they wanted to prove that they were stronger, to own her essence as much as her flesh.”

 

Her lips virtually frothed with rage as she cut off another slice of apple. “Do you know what that’s like, Warden? To be truly helpless? To have all the power in the world but only greater pain in your future. He broke her. He wounded her so deeply that the Winter Queen was forced to kill her own daughter to save her kingdom.”

 

She turned to Koschei, her voice quivering with near sexual anticipation. “Heka is owned more violence and retribution than every favor I could add together could have bought me. The one who delivered that vengeance upon him is owed more than I could even begin to deliver.”

 

“We can discuss obligation later - dear niece.” The family word curled from Koschei’s lips with contemptuous glee. “I do have a favor in mind.”

 

Maeve looked up at her Uncle in mock confusion. “Oh - Uncle, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood.”

 

Koschei stiffened, power pooling at his fingertips reflexively. “Misunderstood?”

 

“Why yes, Uncle.” Maeve ripped the apple from my lips. “Because this isn’t Heka.”

 

Koschei didn’t have time to screech in fury before a lance of ice the length of a city bus rocketed out of the Winter Lady’s hand. The baffled deathless one skittered across the ice, his tea-kettle screech of air echoing within the arboretum as he was projected back through the razor-sharp protrusions of ice.

 

I felt cold lips upon mine as skin the color of frozen berries met my own, an icy wave of healing cold shimmering through me before Maeve slammed my head back atop my crucified body. I gasped in shock as my neck healed in an instant, the power of Winter invigorating me with the primal need to survive. I hissed in shock as Maeve grinned at me with victory and lust in her eyes. “Maeve?”

 

“Yes beloved?” Maeve purred, licking her lips in a gesture would probably have been censored on daytime TV.

 

“Uh - thank you?”

 

“A debt is owed, beloved.” Maeve moaned. “We can figure out payment later. For now, get yourself off this tree. I will protect you from my Uncle.”

 

“How?” I snarled. “I’m stuck.”

 

“Are you a god or not?” Maeve replied, a bored tone to her voice even as she protected me from a blast of caustic black light. It detonated with horrific power against her wall of frost and Maeve interposed herself between me and her Uncle as he tried to toss another spell at me.

 

Koschei hissed in fury, throwing foul insults at Maeve as she continued to provide a barrier between Koschei and the tree. The Deathless One’s eyes bugged out in manic hatred as she did so, unable to harm her without breaking his pledge of safe passage. That wasn’t the sort of thing that beings of power did - period. It would damage their power badly, and for someone who would be pissing off a Queen of Fairy in the process, damaged was as good as dead.

 

I struggled against my bonds, but there was just no way that I could get out of them without doing horrific pain and damage to myself. I’d have to rip my flesh to shreds to even try. It would kill me.

 

Wait a second.

 

Stars and stones, it would have killed Harry the Wizard. But I wasn’t that wizard any more - was I? I was in a lot of pain but the winter power raging through just seemed to regard that power as an annoyance. Pain that didn’t kill you was just noise. Focusing on that simple truth, I bent my legs against the tree.

 

The Oak grasped at me, flowering branches and boughs intertwining within my organs in protest to my movement. But even in the mystical world, put enough muscle into something and it will move forward. I kicked upward, casting a blast of magical force through my feet to ensure that the job was done.

 

If you’ve never forced a sword down through your abdomen and into your groin while a tree eviscerates your flesh and organs, I would strongly suggest avoiding it. Even if you have a body that puts itself back together, it’s what I would describe as a suboptimal solution.

 

My body re-formed mid-air and I used a gust of ensorcelled air to re-direct my fall so that my foot collided with Koschei’s jaw as he made a mad grab for the mordite blade still stuck in the tree. He flattened against the ground, ploughing a deep furrow in the frozen earth with his screaming face. “Cheaters! You damned cheats!”

 

I was blasted back by a bolt of force, tumbling up and into the tree’s outstretched branches. The Oak tried to force me down, clearly intending to impale me a second time. I snarled “Fuck that!”

 

I crooked my fingers, pointing the ruby foci at the tree as I let the mantle of the Warden take control as I shouted, “Fuego!”

 

Silver-white fire spread out across the Oaks branches, igniting every inch of it in glowing flames. The oak howled, echoing with agony as ensorcelled flames ate into it. I didn’t know exactly what sort of creature of construct it was, but when it doubt - burn it to the ground.

 

I fell to the ground painfully, groaning as my back broke against the frozen ground. Stars flashed in my eyes as my body knit them back together.

 

“No!” Koschei howled, turning a block of ice into water and flinging it at the oak. It re-directed itself back onto the frozen lake from a crook of Maeve’s fingers.

 

“No, dear Uncle - not this time.” Maeve cackled. “Today is the day that I take everything from you.”

 

“Hateful slut.” Koschei crowed. He moved across the ground, quick as a flash. I lifted my foci to blast him away from it, only for a cylinder to soar through the air and collide with the Son of Winter’s head. He caught it in his hands, looking down at it in momentary confusion before the flash-bang grenade exploded in the man’s face. I had only an instant to cover my ears and eyes before a handheld can of sensory overload went off.

 

Koschei screeched in pain and fury, staggering back from the blade as Marchenko whooped with glee. I’d practically forgotten the Russian was there, but the ornery Russian wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to stick it to Koschei. The Son of Winter had barely gotten his bearings before another flash-bang landed at his feet and a lance of ice flung him away from his blade.

 

He stood up from the icy surface of the lake, utter hatred in his voice as he said. “You fools - you think you’ve won? You think you’ve proved anything? By the time you even realize your doom it will be too late.”

 

And then, he was gone in a billowing mess of cloaks and jewelry. He soared up and into the hole he’d cut in the ceiling to enter. As he did so there was a shift in power, a taste on the air that was sickly sweet. Everything felt heavier, as though I were moving through molasses.

 

I looked at the Winter Lady. “What did he just do.”

 

“He slowed down time, of course.” Maeve sighed in exasperation. “It is a very practical course. The spell will increase in power as he moves away from us. We have only moments before it will be hours or even days passing for every second we are in here.”

 

“Hell’s Bells.” Koschei had been a nightmare to fight even when he hadn’t had advance notice to prepare wards and spells to kill me. “Can you counter it.”

 

“No, beloved.” Maeve replied calmly. “But it is inconsequential.”

 

“It kind of feels important.” I replied. “That whole time thing is a bitch and a half.”

 

“You are not mortal, beloved.” Maeve chuckled. “It is adorable how you still think in the terms of your chattel. Koschei has all but killed himself by taking your High Priestess.”

 

“Because it pissed me off?” I walked over to the still burning oak, yanking Koschei’s bade from it and considering it idly.

 

“Because she is your high priestess.” The Winter Lady purred in amusement, emphasizing the last two words with significant implication. “And was praying for salvation.”

 

“And her god can be summoned to her side in an instant.” I replied breathlessly, almost dropping the sword. “I - I don’t know… I’ve never summoned my entire body further than line of sight. I’ve just astral projected before. I don’t even know if I can.”

 

“You are incomplete.” Maeve agreed, running a gauntleted finger across my pauldron lovingly. Her voice was utter sex as she crooned. “But there is enough winter in you to allow you to move once with minimal damage.”

 

“Define minimal.” I gulped, already knowing I was going to do it regardless. Damned conscience - always getting in the way.

 

“I know not, your mantle will protect you but there is always a price.” Maeve shrugged. “I will show you how. But before you go, there is the matter of the blade.”

 

“About that?” I hefted the green black of the blade. “Where the hell did Koschei get this much mordite?”

 

“He needed the protection.” Maeve shifted away from the deathstone reflexively. Apparently Koschei’s ability to touch the stuff didn’t come from the Fairy side of the family.

 

I whistled long and low. “Mordite is one hell of a self defense.”

 

“No, beloved.” Maeve giggled girlishly, playing with one of her dreadlocks in amusement. “The mordite is there to prevent others from accessing what is within the blade.”

 

I looked down at the deathstone saber - if I were looking for a guaranteed way to keep other people from messing with something I didn’t want them to touch, mordite would definitely do the job. I grabbed the blade by the hilt and smashed it against the burning oak, sending a wave of magical force up it as I did so to direct the shrapnel. The stone, made brittle by the silver fire, shattered. Deathstone projectiles hammered into the scorching oak, revealing the blade beneath it.

 

It looked to be a blade of medieval make, designed for war rather than to impress people with the wealth of its wielder. But the simplicity of the weapon belied the power that seemed to be within it. If anything, the mordite exterior had been there to camouflage the blade within it. My eyes bulged as I read the lettering inscribed within the blade’s hilt. “Is this what I think it is?”

 

“Clarent, the Sword of Peace.” Maeve replied. “The blade Koschei stole from Mordred.”

 

“The fucking Coward’s Blade?” How was this thing fucking scarier without the mordite. “The weapon that killed freaking King Arthur?”

 

“It is a weapon made by Merlin’s own hand.” Maeve replied. “A weapon that even a Gate Builder must fear. It is no more evil than the one who wields it.”

 

“You are going to be murder on my PR.” I groaned as I grabbed my staff off the ground.

 

“I will be murder for many things for you.” Maeve replied in a voice that was appetizing and terrifying at once. “But for now, I will simply protect your companions and free them from the spells afflicting them. I dare not leave this room. I am no equal for Koschei.”

 

“And I am by my freaking self? He wiped the floor with me.” I groaned. “Can’t you come with me?”

 

“No.” Maeve replied, her voice utter frost. “I have given you all that I may. Forget not that I am a guest within Buyan. But you are clever. I am confident that you will prevail.”

 

The Coward’s blade felt hungry in my hand as I swallowed nervously. “How do I allow myself to be summoned?”

 

“Why, beloved, that is the simplest part.” Maeve purred. “One simply has to truly know how to listen.”


	42. Chapter 42

Putting myself into a meditative state isn’t something that I’m great at. I have an entire ritual for clearing my mind and spirit that I normally go through for complex and dangerous magic. I wash, I strip naked, I light candles, and do hours worth of preparation to remove distractions to minimize the potential for unexpected elements to interfere with the magical forces at work. When you’re casting dangerous magic you’ve ideally limited every possible variable that might distract you at a crucial moment.

 

One does not, for example, try to translocate between places in a forcible summoning ritual when one is exhausted, listening to the thundering echoes of space ships bombarding the city in which you’re standing, hopped up on dubious fairy magic, and terrified that the person you’re trying to reach is being actively tortured. And all of that was ignoring whatever power was being used to screw with time.

 

I shut my eyes tight, trying to tap into that seemingly endless sea of echoing voices. I growled in annoyance as Maeve caressed my chin and purred, “Concentrate, beloved.”

 

“You know what would help my concentration?” I replied irritatedly. “Silence.”

 

“You are tense, beloved.” Maeve continued her hyper-sexual whisper as she pressed her armored body up to my own. My eyes bugged open as she ran her icy talons over my armored crotch and I felt them as though her bare hand were upon my flesh. “I find that men tend to forget their tensions when appropriately motivated.”

 

“I’m good on motivation.” My voice didn’t crack like a teenager at the sudden sensation of contact. Nope, I was entirely manly and Maeve’s lusty cackle was entirely underserved. I continued to speak in a voice that was just as manly. “Shouldn’t you be saving my minions.”

 

Maeve pouted. “But I’m helping you, aren’t I, beloved? Haven’t you already lost track of the things that seemed so important a moment ago?”

 

I had, damn it, but it was the principle of the matter. It had been a long time since anyone distracted me in that way and wasn’t going to break my streak with a lunatic, supernatural, schlong-jockey like freaking Maeve. It was no wonder that Mab hadn’t allowed the Winter Lady to visit my court, killing Heka had to be the closest thing to viagra for one of the Fae. I’d dealt a blow to her hated enemy, killing him in a way that tortured him with his greatest desire in life.

 

I wasn’t sure what was more potentially terrifying, Maeve’s obligation to me or my obligation to her mother given the former. Being Maeve’s beloved seemed like it was potentially as dangerous as being her worst enemy. The love of a fairy noble of Winter was the sort of thing that was generally part of a horror story rather than a romantic comedy. If I survived this, I would be dancing on eggshells to figure out how to decline her advances without incurring the enmity of Winter.

 

“Maeve, I would take it as a kindness if you would help my friends sooner rather than later.” I replied as diplomatically as one can reply to someone using fairy ju-ju to grope you. “Please.”

 

“Very well, beloved.” Maeve kissed my cheek as she let go of me. “Do please make Uncle suffer.”

 

“Obviously.” I snarled, the star flecked pits of my eyes crackling with crimson lightning and spite. Rage focusing me as surely as lust had only a moment ago. Stars and Stones - Maeve was playing me, using the Winter she’d put in me to direct my emotions as she needed them to be. She was “helping” me as she felt was best.

 

Freaking fairies.

 

I closed my eyes again and reached out for the legion of minds I knew to be praying for my guidance. It was blinding and deafening, there were so many sources of prayer that I could hardly tell them apart. I muttered to myself. “Listen Harry. You just need to listen.”

 

I exhaled slowly and tried to focus on the words coming to me. I just needed the nearest source of sound, the physically closest. It took a moment for me to recognize Muminah’s prayers. Her voice was squeaky - distorted by the shifting tides of time separating me from her to the point that she was virtually part of the Chipettes. But it was her.

 

Motes of starlight started to flow from me as I focused on her need, her desire for me to be in her presence. At its most basic level, a summoning spell is just a request made to the universe for something to be there that wasn’t. Names have power in such rituals because you are begging their presence. It wasn’t much go off of, but it was enough.

 

I let my mantle subsume the power of Winter given to me by Maeve, shadows and starlight dissolving Winter’s frost in a single poignant spell using an inversion of my preferred summoning ritual.

 

And then I screamed.

 

In case you’d forgotten, summoning hurts. But I wasn’t just summoning from point A to point B. I was allowing Muminah to summon me through Kochei’s spells of time manipulation and an entire city’s worth of ancient wards. I don’t know how exactly I screamed when I stopped having lungs and became a compressed point of starlight shoved through a morass of time and offensive wards. But since the pain never stopped, I never felt the need to stop screaming in pain.

 

And then, the pain stopped.

 

I’d never given much thought to the pentagram tattooed on the bellies of the priestesses of Nehkeb. It had just been one more ward in a body made into a magic resistant work of art. Koschei clearly hadn’t considered it of particular relevance because when I erupted out of it and smashed him in the face with my staff it came as an utter surprise.

 

I had enough time to observe the room before Koschei’s bell unrung.I was in a place twice as large as the arboretum had been, a large hexagonal space made from multifaceted surfaces of naquadah with inlaid crystal. The presumptive bridge of the city judging by the glowing consuls and the raised chair at the center of it. If I had to guess we were several levels above the arboretum at the direct center of the snowflake. The Gate Builders apparently valued theater above practicality in their architecture but ritual significance above all else.

 

The Son of Winter staggered back from my blow, slightly cross eyed as he tried to reconcile his reality with the sudden appearance of a man in his Throne Room. He stared at me, open jawed, and asked, “Who the hell are you?” before looking down at my blade and screaming, “Who the hell are you?”

 

I had barely a moment to raise my shield before a wave of shimmering silver liquid came from his figers like mercury. It splashed against my shield, shimmering and spitting against the dome of energy I raised around my high-priestess and I. I reacted in horror to the face staring back to me, a skull wreathed in star-flecked black flames - only for that face to react in equal and opposite. Oh, hell’s bells - summoning myself through the wards had flensed me.

 

“Lord Warden?” Muminah asked in shock and horror, reverently addressing me as the silver liquid rolled off the shield and congealed into eight of the massive, prehistoric looking Ghouls I’d faced before the arboretum. “How did you defeat the monster’s magic?”

 

“You prayed. I was able to use that to get to you.” I wasn't sure if my grin came off as manic anymore - mania was sort of hard to convey without lips or cheeks. “Wasn’t going to let this asshole take one of my people.”

 

“I thought you didn’t listen to prayers.” Muminah jibed in amusement as she stood up from the ground. There was a dark patch of skin on her face from where Koschei had hit her that was still bleeding and had already started to bruise.

 

“I don’t require prayer. I never said I didn’t listen.” I replied, dropping the shield and driving Clarent into the belly of the nearest ghoul. The Ghoul’s belly erupted into blue-green fire where the blade hit it, cursed energy erupting out from the creature’s skin as he cooked from the inside out. Ok - not what I’d intended, but I’d take it.

 

The other seven Ghouls took a step back, looking from Koschei to me as though trying to determine which of us they’d rather anger. I didn’t give them the opportunity to make that choice.

 

I’m ok with a sword. I’m no Michael Carpenter, but I’d trained myself in the use of a blade just in case. I’m tall and I’ve got a longer reach than most people. Give me a long blade and I’ll hold my own. Even if I’m not the fastest blade on the planet, you’d have a heck of a time getting in close enough to do me harm even before got the Goa’uld super-strength package. Clarent was a weapon that could probably have been considered a longsword if not for the hand and a half grip attached to it.

 

Heh, I suppose the Sword of Cowards really couldn’t have ever been anything other than a Bastard sword. I don’t know if I would have been able to even lift Clarent one handed before becoming a Goa’uld, but it moved with the ease and fluidity of my sword cane. The super-ghouls didn’t know what hit them.

 

Ghouls mostly rely on their preternatural strength and healing to protect them in a straight up fight. There isn’t much that can hurt them enough to keep them down. When it comes to sharp objects a Ghoul will generally elect to let themselves get stabbed so that they can go for the kill with their teeth and claws. So, when it comes to defending yourself from a sword - they’re amateurs.

 

In as much time as it took for the closest Ghoul to screech, “Mercy!” I’d already took long swipes at all seven super-ghouls. I only managed to graze their flesh, but that was all it took. All seven Ghouls died screaming, curse-flame immolating them as I strode towards the Deathless.

 

“You fool.” Koschei snarled. “You’ve doomed yourself even if you win this day. By binding yourself to that blade you will suffer its destiny. You cannot understand the war you’ve entered.”

 

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Oooh - another war. I’ve never started one of those before.”

 

“Give me the blade, child.” Koschei snarled, black smoke billowing from under his garments. “Give me the blade and I will consent to taking you as my apprentice.”

 

“Join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son?” I shook my head. “Honestly man, I get that offer so damn much that I’m getting tired of even making that reference. You don’t get it - do you Koschei?”

 

“Enlighten me.” Koschei snarled, his black smoke billowing out around the floor. I summoned fire into my staff, silver-white spellfire flickering up its length. His hideous malevolence shied away from the staff’s light. Koschei snarled in irritation, summoning more black smoke to choke out all light in the room except the small pool of light around me. We became so choked in darkness that Muminah disappeared from view behind me. I could just barely hear the malevolent darkness sizzling against the protective wards tattooed on her flesh.

 

“Two things.” I glared back at him. “The first - you aren’t a person as far as I’m concerned. Hell, you’re strong, you’re fast, and you’re powerful - it will be a bitch to kill you. I get that. But you died the second you took a freaking child with the intention of torturing her, you just haven’t stopped moving yet.”

 

“Arrogant whelp.” Koschei purred. “I will enjoy killing you almost as much as I will enjoy destroying all that my mother has made with the Archive’s knowledge. I tire of this, boy, tell me the second thing so that I might slay you.”

 

“You vastly underestimate women.” I made another attempt at a skeletal grin as the sizzling mass of burning shadow jumped out from behind Koschei and ripped the man’s sack from his belt, throwing it at me. I sliced the bag in half, disgorging everyone trapped within. Koschei howled his tea-kettle screech of horror, trying to reach out for the sliced fabric only to fly back as a warded foot connected with his jaw - sending him back into the crystalline surface of his throne.

 

A large group of confused women spilled out across the floor of Koschei’s throne room, disgorged in the state they’d been in when Koschei had first tossed them into the sack. Holy crap, Koschei had been a busy boy. I swear he must had kidnapped every beautiful woman who hoved into his field of view. In addition to conservatively seven Brute Squad Wardens, there were half a dozen female Russian soldiers and women he’d taken from every country between Archangel and Cairo. I honestly wasn’t sure how many justifiedly terrified women were in that pile.

 

My heart soared as I caught sight of Ivy, the little girl looking alarmed but none the worse for wear. She glowed with the light of powerful protective spells, anyone who tried to touch her without her permission would regret it. Trusting that she was knowledgeable enough to get to safety, I continued direct my focus at Koschei as he attacked my High Priestess. He was furious at having been robbed of his prize.

 

“Hateful bitch!” Koschei screamed. He cupped his hands over his mouth and pulled forward like a sword swallower. I felt almost sick to my stomach as I watched him vomit into his fingers, transmogrifying his blood flecked sick into a spear of mordite. He stabbed down at my high-priestess, gouging furrows in the floor with the newly minted deathstone weapon.

 

I interposed myself between koschei and my high priestess, blocking his spear with my crossed staff and blade. Koschei spat acid at me, binding me as it melted through exposed bone. I staggered back, grunting as he repeatedly stabbed me in the chest - sending green spellfire into the wound as he did so.

 

“I have had enough of you!” My sight returned as Koschei screeched, my head re-forming from the dissolved mass of calcium it had been. I groaned as I caught sight of a purple globe congealing in his palm. Even if I could surive Koschei’s black-hole spell, I was confident that I wouldn’t want to. “Now you - AHG!”

 

Koschei’s spell disappeared as his concentration was broken by a massive, leonine paw. He staggered back in confusion, turning to face a chimeric monster the size of an elephant. Motes of brilliant green flame billowed out from the creature’s eyes as the crocodile-head of a creature I recognize as Ammit’s legendary form bit off Koschei’s head. Koschei, slowed but not stopped by his decapitation, furiously stabbed at the elephantine creature.

 

My memory flashed back to the glowing green blood around Warden Nanami’s lips. Ammit - Eater of Sin - had switched hosts. I wasn’t sure if “god of stubborn survival” was one of her formal titles, but it really ought to have been. I practically wept with joy as Ammit tore into the deathless one with her teeth and jaws, rending him into meat and vapor.

 

The vapor grabbed the spear, billowing up onto Ammit’s back. The re-formed Koschei drove his spear into Ammit’s flank, riding rodeo on the Eater of Sin. Ammit spun and bucked, trying to remove the Prince of Winter as he cast magic in every direction. I don’t even know if there are words to describe the spells he used, entropy, elemental magic, and transmogrification blasting out in combinations I hadn’t known were possible.

 

The Brute Squad Wizards were able to block some of them, preventing the worst of them from reaching the confused women who were screaming and trying to flee. But there was too much chaos to protect them all. Women died left and right, dissolving into ash, melting in extreme heat, or worse. One unfortunate woman had an ensorcelled badger claw its way out of her belly before it bit into a Brute Squad Wizard’s leg.

 

And then the Archive reminded me of exactly why a small child is considered a peer to the White Council of Wizards. She opened her backpack, pulling a steno note-pad with sparkly stickers on the front and a wand almost as long as her arm before going to war. She blasted Koschei from Ammit, sending the Deathless one and his spear to the ground and forcing to choose between defending against Ammit and defending against the unending rainbow of offensive magic she was flinging at him.

 

I joined them, flinging silver white fire and stabbing at him whenever he tried to advance with his spear. There was a panicked, desperate look to him as he splayed his fingers spraying a wave of silver liquid to wash across us. Another thirty of the massive ghouls appeared and started attacking everyone at once. Damn it - I could take the super-ghouls easy, but there were too many people.

 

“I’ve got this, Warden.” Ammit snarled turning from Koschei to the Ghouls. “Get that bastard!”

 

The Archive and I continued our assault on him, refusing to give him an inch to even think as we blasted him with every spell we had. Koschei was burned, frozen, melted, electrocuted, and every other “ed” that the two of us could force that misogynist son of a bitch to feel. But it was pointless, all we were managing to do was to irritate him.

 

“How do we kill this bastard?” I snarled over the sounds of battle. Gunfire ripped across my shoulder, friendly fire from one of the Russians.

 

“We can’t.” Ivy replied. “Mother Winter was the one who cursed him with Immortality.”

 

“She cursed him with immortality?” I groaned. “How is the curse broken.”

 

“If I knew that I would have killed him ages ago.” Ivy groaned, tears welling in her eyes. “Just - keep fighting and I’ll figure something out.”

 

Oh crap. The Archive was monumentally powerful, but she was still just a kid. She could cast magic to make the world tremble, but it was attached to someone not physically able to ride in the front seat of a car. She must have been pretty much running on empty even before she’d been casting protective magic on herself for three days.

 

And then the Archive said a word that children probably shouldn’t know, eyeing the crystal that Koschei pulled out of his belt. “Warden don’t let him -”

 

But it was too late. Koschei smashed the crystal on the floor and there was a wave of orange sparks that washed out and across the throne room. Spells can be stored up to use them in a pinch. My kinetic rings, for example, stored up a little bit of force so that I could unleash that force at a moment of my choosing. But Koschei hadn’t used it to store up force, Koschei had stored up the chronomantic power he’d used to stop Kincaid cold and trap me in the Arboretum.

 

I reflexively lashed out at the wave of orange light washing across the room with Clarent - and to my immense surprise, it worked. It hadn’t been enough to stop the entire blast of the chronomantic grenade, but it had protected me and the woman immediately behind me. Muminah - my high priestess looked out at the sudden tableau of bodies frozen in time in a way that reminded me that there was no way in hell I was making it out of this trip without another damn holy book written about my exploits.

 

The Archive was already starting to return to normal speed. Her counterspell only seconds from casting away Koschei’s magic. Her small body glowed blue as she forced the laws of physics to operate normally.

 

“No matter.” Koschei hissed, eyeing me with contempt. “You are no match for me. I will cast you into the Nevernever and be done with you.”

 

As he ripped open a wide path to the world beyond the world I couldn’t help but smile my skeletal smile as I caught sight of where it opened up to. Rather than whatever he’d been hoping to find, Koschei opened up his throne room to a massive crowd of men in red armor. Jaffa of Nekheb, lead by Ul’tak. And immortal or not, several hundred staff blasts fired at close range hurt.

 

Bless that beautiful, decapitated pervo - Bob had come through and done what I asked him to do in my message. I hadn’t been sure if the Erlking was going to be quite as able as my godmother had been to follow me everywhere - I certainly hadn’t made it easy to keep up with me. I’d been more or less convinced it had been a wasted effort after several jaunts through the Nevernever hadn’t revealed my re-enforcements on the other side.

 

“Protect the Warden!” Bellowed my first prime as he charged Koschei, advancing at the head of my personal guard. Koschei, suddenly on the defensive stabbed at my Jaffa killing three of them before falling to the ground - loosing his footing, literally.

 

He dropped as Clarent separated him from his feet, eyes mad with terror as the Jaffa blocked him from grabbing the severed limbs. The black smoke that had healed him from seemingly any wound didn’t come from his feet, green spell flames having cauterized both sides of the wound. As the Jaffa encircled him, continuing to fire staff-blasts into the disabled monster as I pitched the severed limbs through the barrier of the Nevernever to land on the loamy grass.

 

And in that simple gesture I had worse than killed the Prince of Winter.

 

A hand reached up from the Moon’s surface, large enough to envelop the entire city of Buyan in its fingers. I watched as pale, blue flesh worn and aged like shoe-leather covered all the windows.

Everything went to black as the impossibly huge fingers of Mother Winter dragged us into shadow.


	43. Chapter 43

Shadows consumed me, whisking me away from the throne room to an empty void. I blinked as a pillar of light formed around me blinding after the utter emptiness I had been in. I poked my staff into the shadow outside the pillar and watched as it melted into utter blackness. Pulling it back into the light I sighed with relief as it returned to the light, apparently undamaged. I wouldn’t have put it past Mother Winter to strand me in a void of endless, caustic shadow and just wait for me to go mad and off myself. It would have been her style.

 

“I know you’re there, Mother Winter.” I spoke to the void, reasonably confident that I knew where I was. But it would do me no good to show fear. Mother Winter was the predator among predators, Winter’s frozen heart. She was the cool hard need to survive, an unforgiving force of pure nature. “I thank you for this unexpected invitation.”

 

“Well, well, well - Wizard, or do I call you god now?” There was glint of sparks in the darkness as Mother Winter’s iron teeth ground together. “What do I do with you?”

 

“Nothing, I believe.” I replied, willing my speech not to quaver with the fear I actually felt. I mean, come on - the woman had just grabbed a city out of the sky on a whim. I wasn’t even in the ballpark of being able to do anything to stop her if she meant me harm. “I have done you no wrong, Mother Winter.”

 

“Haven’t you?” I could hear the sounds of a cleaver being sharpened against a leather strap - though I couldn’t place where exactly. “I believe it was you who tossed my son’s feet across the threshold of my kingdom - forcing him to break my Law.”

 

“He had already defied your law, my Queen.” I replied firmly. “He stole the Archive from Nevernever.”

 

“He never stepped foot on my realm though, did he. You stepped his feet in for him.” I could hear the sound of the cleaver being struck against something wooden, a table or cutting board perhaps. “Some might assume that a mother would do most grievous harm on behalf of her child. Some would assert she ought to.”

 

I actually laughed. It was a manic thing, as fearful as mirthful but it was a genuine laugh. “Sure - but not you. Koschei was defying you, he was flaunting the fact that he could disobey you without actually disobeying you. I just forced him to actually face the music on this one.”

 

There was a loud thwack of a cleaver on wood that sent shivers down my spine as I heard someone shuffling towards me. Granny cleaver’s face glowed hideously at the edge of the magical pillar of light, her iron fangs spread wide in - holy crap - she was freaking smiling. “Yes, Harry. You did.”

 

Oh, Crap.

 

I suppose it would have been too much to hope that Granny Winter didn’t know who I was. But I really had hoped. And then several thoughts connected in the back of my head which had been percolating for the past several days. “It was you. You’re the one to ordered Queen Mab to tell Titania that I killed her daughter. You’re the one who arranged for the Archive to know who I am. You’re the one who ordered Titania to make sure that the Archive would bring me back to Archangel.”

 

“Am I now?” Mother Winter’s teeth sparked as she chuckled. “And why would you assume something like that. My daughter is always going off and doing things without consulting with me. What makes you so important?”

 

“I was the only one with even half a chance. I’m the only one who can take mordite to the skull and shake it off - at least I was until Ammit god a wizard host.” I groaned, realizing how stupid I’d been. Mab had basically done everything but have a marching band walk through Nekheb with banners saying “it’s a trap” and I’d just blundered into it because I was terrified to Titania. I’d never even considered that Mab might not be the one pulling the strings here. I mean, it’s freaking Mab. “It didn’t matter to you how much collateral damage would happen, you knew that once Koschei escaped and kidnapped a child his days were numbered.”

 

“That is certainly one way to interpret what has happened. I do not deny that reigning in my son’s treachery brings me joy.” She smiled her horrific, gangrenous grin - smiling with all the joy of a rotting corpse as she continued to speak. “But I have yet to decide if the good done by dealing with my miscreant of a son is balanced out by my obligation to protect family, even if that family isn’t of fairy.”

 

She held up her hand, displaying a small glass globe containing a single snowflake. As she rotated it between her fingers I realized that it was Buyan. An entire city and she was rolling it on her palm like some tawdry bauble. She looked from me to the glass ball, following my gaze. “Do you like my new toy, Warden?”

 

“I like a number of people in it.” I replied cautiously. “I would prefer that they not be damaged.”

 

“And what would you do if I gave it to you?” Mother Winter’s voice was daggers and frost as she clutched it. I winced as her fingers tightened against the glass - not enough to break it but enough that the popping of her arthritic knuckles terrified me that she might. “Would you do something so tawdry and mortal as taking it for your own? Do you plan to take responsibility for those within it?”

 

“I bear responsibility for the welfare and survival of the people on that city, yes.” I replied, unable to tear my eyes away from the glass ball. “I would see to their safety and welfare, yes.”

 

“Do not just say it. Swear it to me.” Mother Winter replied. “Swear that you will take responsibility for the people in Buyan.”

 

“I swear it.” I replied breathlessly.

 

Mother Winter’s smile grew crueler than I could have possibly imagined as she tossed me the glass bauble. “Then take it, Lord Warden.”

 

I grabbed the glass bauble in confusion, catching it in my hands and cradling it between them as though it might break at any second. “You’re just giving it to me?”

 

My blood chilled as Mother Winter replied to me. “Warden, I cannot think of a punishment more fitting than the responsibility you have just elected to take.”

 

There was a click of arthritic fingers and suddenly the space I was in flooded with light as soot was cast off the windows of a small, medieval cabin. I looked over at a long wooden table to the cleaver. Apparently the horrific, fleshy sounds I’d heard only moments ago had been root vegetables of all things. The wizened crone of winter didn’t seem to like the light, but she tolerated it so that she could be seen.

 

“Um - what do I do with it now that I have it?” I’ll admit it wasn’t a particularly articulate question but damned if I could figure out how to return the city to its normal size.

 

“You toss it into the air, obviously.” Mother Winter rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Honestly, you’re barely a god at all.”

 

There was a creak of ancient hinges as a door swing inward, the smell of Autumn's last breath caressing the air with the smell of mulled wine and spices. A cheerful woman entered the cottage, the lines on her face and hands caused by laughter rather than hardship. Mother Summer arched a brow at me, looking to her contemporary and asking. “As he is not dead and in a stewpot I am left to wonder, why is there a Goa’uld in my house? Why is the architect of my granddaughter's death not in pieces.”

 

“Because Aurora’s death was necessary and we both know it.” Mother Winter replied firmly. She walked over to the root vegetables and grabbed from the table, carrying them over to the stewpot. “Family is held to a higher standard.”

 

As she lifted the lid off the boiling pot I was greeted by the piteous screams of Koschei. I closed my eyes, looking away as though not seeing him trying to climb out from the boiling vessel would save me from his cries. “Mommy, please mommy don’t - don’t do this to me mommy - I love you. I love you!”

 

I shuddered as the top slammed back down, silencing Koschei as he his atavistic bellow of “Why don’t you love me? Why don’t you love me!” pierced my very soul.

 

That was going to haunt my nightmares for a while yet to come. I looked to Mother Winter as she stared at me, her face unreadable. “Pardon me for asking, Mother Summer, but weren’t you the ones who told Wizard Dresden all he needed to know?”

 

“Speaking about one’s self in the third person is a sign of madness.” Replied Mother Summer.

 

Double crap. I pressed the issue anyway. “That doesn’t answer my question, your highness.”

 

“Necessity does not divorce me from my love for my grandchild.” Mother Summer replied. “I am guided by the wisdom of the heart. You’re right that it is foolish to feel anger, but I would be lying to say that I have forgiven you for this necessity.”

 

“He has taken custody of Buyan.” Mother Winter replied, stoking the flames before pointing to Clarent with her red-hot poker. “And Clarent.”

 

Mother Summer’s eyes narrowed in incredulity as she looked from the first object, then to the second, then back at me. “Oh, you poor child.”

 

You know. Eventually I’m going to make a deal with the Fae where I’m the one who screws other the other party. I mean statistically it has to happen at least once.

 

“I apologize for my rudeness, Mother Summer, but I have an appointment with your daughter. I promised Eldest Gruff that I would turn myself into him to negotiate the terms of my surrender.” I looked from her to Mother Winter. “May I take my leave?”

 

Mother Winter waved me off. “Go, godling. You will not have the stomach to endure what comes next.”

 

Mother Summer considered me briefly before opening the door. “I believe your transportation has already been arranged.”

 

I all but fled the cottage. I didn’t what to know what Mother Winter had in mind for her baby boy if boiling him alive was the part she felt suitable for public consumption. My hands shook with fear and my legs buckled under me as I reached Mother Summer’s herb garden. I bit back bile in my throat, not wanting to vomit in the cottage garden for fear that Granny Cleaver might use it for some ritual.

 

A pair of thick leather hunting boots appeared in front of me as someone huge jumped off a stag. I looked up to see the Erlking. “Greetings Lord Warden.”

 

“Morning Earl.” I took his outstretched hand, noting that he’d wrapped it in mortal fabric to allow himself to touch my ferrous gauntlet. “I see you managed to get my guys to me.”

 

“Indeed, Lord Warden. How could I resist the urge to help men to go on such an auspicious hunt. And one for Mother Winter’s own table, no less?” The Erlking laughed without any mirth to it, though I knew it passed for joy as far as he was concerned. “Would that I were able to join you Old Hunter.”

 

“Tell you what, Earl. The next time an insane, nigh-immortal, power mad gate-builder ends up trying to kill me, you’re welcome to join me in kicking his ass.” I stood up woozily. “In fact I insist that you help.”

 

“I will hold you to it, Old Hunter.” The Erlking’s mirthless laugh of joy continued. “But for now, business. You have a debt yet owed.”

 

“Yeah, I know.” I replied. “How do we play this.”

 

“First there is the matter of the Bane you carry with you.” The Erlking gestured to, well, everything I was wearing. “You dare not enter negotiations with the Summer Queen bearing that much of the bane.”

 

“I’m supposed to go there unarmed and unarmored?” I sighed, protesting even though I knew he was right.

 

“If you are forced to fight where I’m taking you, there is no amount of the Bane that will save you.” The Erlking replied, pulling a leather sack from his stag. “Place your belongings in this bag and you have my word that they will be returned to you if you survive your meeting with Titania.”

 

“Let's just get this over with.” I replied, already suspecting where he would take me. I stripped off my armor and weapons, tossing them into the Erlking’s sack. Though ensorcelled to take many items within it in spite of it’s relative size, it was apparently not of fairy make. Iron did it no harm. I reticently placed Buyan into the sack. I’d spent a lot of time keeping the people in my care out of sacks today. It felt weird to put them back in one. But in the sack I had the Erlking’s promise that my belongings would be returned to me.

 

That was something at least.

 

I was naked and unarmed, but if this went wrong that was the least of the indignities I would suffer today. Most of the flesh on my body seemed to have remained, though there were irregular rips across my chest, legs, and arms exposing bones and starlight. I allowed the Erlking to help me onto his stag .

 

We didn’t talk as the stag went through the Nevernever. Earl wasn’t the talkative sort and I was too busy figuring out exactly what to say. I didn’t have as much time as I would have preferred. The stag moved through countries and continents of fairy so fast that it was virtually teleporting.

 

I had formed my half a plan into at least something resembling a plan by the time we reached a small wooded glen. Though seemingly inconspicuous, as we breached the glamors surrounding it, it was readily apparent that my suspicious had been correct. We were heading for Titania's seat of power.

 

Unlike the Winter Court, Summer had no permanent stronghold. They followed the seasons through the Nevernever, relocating the Summer Court to whatever portion of the Nevernever was closest to Summer’s warmth at the moment. As a consequence the structures and defenses of the Summer Court moved. Some were more traditional structures like wooden caravans or palinquins on a grand scale moved by giant beasts of Summer. Titania’s great fortress, however, was a massive tree on the scale of most cities that dragged itself along the forest floor with octopus like roots that would gently move any intervening trees and rocks out of the way, re-planting them where they wouldn’t be obstructions.

 

All manner of creatures made their home in the traveling caravan of Summer. Satyrs, centaurs, elves, sprites, and creatures of every description, they were all as bright and beautiful as the creatures of Winter were cold and calculating. But the Kingdom of Summer was not a place of song and joy - not today.

 

Today Summer was in mourning for the loss of their beloved lady.

 

And I was the one who killed her.

 

Yay me.

 

A horde of monsters did not descend upon me when first we landed, which was at least something. The Erlking let me down from his stag and said, “I will wait for you here, Warden. This is something you must do alone.”

 

“You sure about that?” I groused. “Because I’d feel more confident with you and a goblin army with me.”

 

“You have agreed to surrender.” The Erlking replied firmly. “I would not dare to interfere with you completing a bargain. Nor would I tolerate you breaking one. I am standing in for your godmother, after all. I could not allow a charge in my care to do something so… rude.”

 

That… ugh… freaking fairies. I’d been hoping if this went tits up that I could at least rely on the Erlking to back me up. He’d done it before against summer. But that was before this became a matter of fairy honor. It was probably physically impossible for the Erlking to allow someone to break their word.

 

Here’s to hoping that plan “a” worked. Yeah - sure. That would happen. After all the universe loooves Harry Dresden.

 

“Warden.” A wizened voice brayed out from the entrance to the Summer Palace. Eldest Gruff stood, waiting. He looked me up and down as I walked up to him, his lips curling back in a smile. “Generally when one comes to surrender they only divest themselves of their weapons, not all worldly possessions.”

 

“I didn’t want the Satyrs to feel left out, what with always being naked and all.” I shook the Gruff’s hand as he offered it to me. “Seemed the best way to avoid someone assuming I snuck a weapon into the Summer Court.”

 

“While the sentiment is wise, the Satyrs are perhaps not the sources of wisdom I would look to in a delicate negotiation.” Jibed the Gruff, though his eyes still glinted with anger.

 

“Well I just got done kicking Koschei’s ass and I’m tossing myself bare ass naked to Titania’s mercy.” I snorted. “I don’t know how their wisdom can be any worse than mine is.”

 

“How did you know?” Asked the Gruff.

 

“Huh?” I answered lamely.

 

“How did you know what Aurora was going to do?” Replied Eldest Gruff. “How did you know that she had gone mad.”

 

“I’ve seen it happen before.” I replied, omitting that the “previous time” had also been Aurora. “Kind of hard to miss once you’ve been through it once.”

 

Eldest Gruff nodded once. “And why did you not inform the Summer Court rather than setting the mortal Wizard against my Queen?”

 

“By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to fix her.” I gestured to myself. “And let’s be real. I’m not a credible source.”

 

Eldest Gruff tilted his head in the slightest of nods. “I believe you.”

 

“Well at least somebody does.” I exhaled, looking up at the massive tree. “Not that it matters.”

 

“Doing what is right always matters, especially when one can expect no reward for doing it.” Eldest Gruff disagreed. “Come, Warden. Titania has agreed to listen to your terms.”

 

“Uh, she has?” I blinked. “I half expected her to have you eviscerate me when I walked through the door.”

 

“Oh, I would have.” Eldest Gruff replied. “If you’d lied to me.”

 

Ge-he-freaking-rate.


	44. Chapter 44

I caused something of an uproar when I entered the Summer Court after Eldest Gruff, naked as a jaybird with my head on fire. I heard an endless chorus of stage whispers as Sidhe nobles and fairy creatures gibbered and cawed - clearly discussing the open secret of the Goa’uld in their midst. The monster who’d engineered Aurora’s death, come to face Titania’s judgement of his own free will. I was reasonably certain that everyone in Summer had shown up to watch the spectacle.

 

Well, screw it, they wanted a spectacle - I’d give them a show they’d remember forever. I let my mantle into me as I crossed the ballroom floor of the Summer Court, my naked footsteps burning into the living wood of the Summer Fortress as I approached the Throne of Summer. Titania sat imperiously upon a throne of living birch, still wearing the ornate fairy armor she’d been wearing at the battle for the table.

 

I knew what she was. I’d seen her with my wizard’s sight at that battle. She was something great and terrible and beyond my ability to comprehend. Whatever I’d become as a result of the ritual of Necromantic Ascension - I was still small potatoes compared to her.

 

And she hated me. Rage and spite were warring on her face as I approached her. As the crowd of nobles parted, I got a clear view of what was in front of her throne. A pale body, covered in bloody cuts, it was a girl who’d died a slow painful death. A woman who was little more than a child, it was the corpse of the Summer Lady, Aurora.

 

I froze at that, staring at the blue white pallor of death upon her.

 

I hadn’t really looked at Aurora’s body after she died. I’d been so tired that I’d been all but comatose when her mother took her. I’d seen her die, which had been horrific in its own right, but to stare at that lifeless remnant of femininity was horrible in an altogether new way that was only expounded and compounded by the utterly hopeless grief of the mother.

 

I had taken away Titania’s baby girl. God, I’d known it - I’d known it ever since I killed her but I’d never associated that simple fact with the magnitude of how much I’d hurt the Summer Queen. I’d suffered no retribution as a consequence of my actions at that battle. Sure, it was the custom of Winter and Summer to treat agents as the weapons of the one who wielded them but there was nothing to say that Titania couldn’t have decided go go scorched earth on the one who dared to touch her daughter. A Queen of Summer wouldn’t have to stretch too far to justify taking action against me.

 

Which meant she hadn’t, which meant something had stopped her. And in that moment I knew how I would accomplish that - I was going to twist a mother’s grief for her child into a weapon against her and I hated myself for it.

 

But I couldn’t afford to be a victim of Titania’s righteous retribution. There were too many people counting on me to lead them, too many people who would die without me there to fight for them. Maybe one day that would be enough for me to forgive myself for what I was about to do.

 

I made my eyes flash with crimson lightning as I forced my voice to echo with the cruelest tones of Goa’uld fury and glee I could manage. “I see you have discovered my handiwork, Queen Titania.”

 

“Yes.” Replied the Queen and I staggered under the sheer weight of that single word. Titania’s anger was a living force that rippled through the air and sent Sidhe nobility screaming from the room. Ears bled and eyes watered as that single syllable echoed through her hall.

 

Hells Bells - she could do that? Well - I needed her too angry to think straight for my plan to work, I just needed her to not kill me before I pulled it off. Who knows - I might even manage it.

 

“My Queen! Perhaps an interlocutor is in order.” Suggested Eldest Gruff, shouting to be heard over the echoes. “It would not do to harm your nobles by accident.”

 

The Queen glared at Eldest Gruff, briefly furious that he’d interrupted her rage before it occurred to her that there were people in pain. She picked a noble from the crowd, seemingly at random, and summoned him to her side. The lithe green sidhe danced across the floor, shimmering over to his Queen in moments. He knelt in a pile of leaves, moss, and pale green flesh next to her as she placed her palm upon his forehead. “Your console is, as always, wise Eldest Gruff. We have much to speak about with the new King of Nekheb. He who has seen fit to not only murder my daughter, but to come gloat about it.”

 

An interlocutor? Well - that would at least save me from dying from her voice as I continued to piss her off. “Not gloat, Queen Titania. Aurora’s death was necessary but not something of which I might be proud. I take no pride in killing the incapable.”

 

“You have the unmitigated gall to insult my child at her wake?” Titania gripped the Sidhe’s head so tightly that the interlocutor gasped in pain. “How dare you.”

 

“We both know that whatever else happens as a result of your negotiations, you plan to kill me. At this point the best I can hope for is a speedy death.” I shrugged disinterestedly. “You’ll pardon me I I feel inclined to have your urge to kill me overpower your urge to torture me.”

 

“I have the power to do things to you that would make the depths of Hell tremble, Lord Warden.” Titania’s interlocutor hissed with his Queen’s rage, even as blood ran down his face from where she clutched his face. “And I will see my revenge fulfilled upon thee.”

 

“Not before hearing my terms, Queen Titania.” I replied sitting Indian Style on the ground in front of Aurora. “We must agree to the terms of my surrender.”

 

“Speak your terms, Lord Warden. And I will consider their value.” Titania’s interlocutor spoke the words as though they were a spiteful joke. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that suits all parties involved.”

 

The collected Sidhe laughed in utter malice, the people of Summer united in their hatred of me. “Firstly - I do not want your troops to use the death of Aurora as an excuse to betray my forces. The terms of war against Chronos stand. He is a menace that need to die and my men need to be able to rely on the honor of your armies. Even if I die or am imprisoned, I expect those Summer Fae who are involved in the war to be allies to my troops against Chronos.”

 

Titania considered the matter, tapping her index finger on the man’s head. “I have no agreement with you, my forces fight as guests of Winter simply because it suits their mood.”

 

“Which is precisely why they would become an easy weapon against my men.” I shook my head. “The Jaffa bear no responsibility for my actions.”

 

“This - term, is not beyond reason.” Titania conceded. “And Chronos is owed retribution for past wrongs to my court. I would not see innocents harmed.”

 

“Along those lines - the humans, Goa’uld, Unas, Jaffa and other species living in my dominion have no knowledge or responsibility for my actions. My choices are mine and mine alone. If I am to suffer for what I have done, so be it, but there will be no actions taken against them for what has happened to Aurora.” I lifted a single finger. “This is non-negotiable.”

 

“Nor need it be.” Titania’s servitor sighed in exasperation. “Do you intend to discuss every mundane possible factor in an effort to extend your life?”

 

“The thought had occurred to me.” I joked in reply, actually earning some laughter from the Sidhe noblilty around me for that. “What with the plan to kill me and all, it seemed fitting.”

 

“This will do little to save you from pain in the long run.” Snarled the queens intermediary as literal fire flicked out from Titania’s nostrils.

 

“Nothing will save me.” I replied calmly. “Being saved isn’t the point.”

 

“Oh?” Replied the intermediary in a voice of contemptuous curiosity. “Then what pray tell are you here to do?”

 

“The right thing - obviously.” I shrugged. “That’s all you can hope to do before you die.”

 

“That is an odd sentiment for a Goa’uld.” The interlocutor replied in a voice that clearly told me that Titania thought I was full of shit.

 

She was right but not about how. I snapped my fingers as though trying to recall something. “The Mortal Wizard in Mab’s service - the one she used as an actual weapon. What was his name?”

 

“Dresden?” Replied the interlocutor. “You are referring to Harry Dresden?”

 

“Yes - Wizard Harry Dresden of Chicago, the one Mab used as a tool. I do not want him harmed as a consequence of what has happened tonight. I will have your word that the forces of Summer will do no harm to the Wizard or any of the creatures in his service as a consequence of the events leading to Lady Aurora’s death, either through action or inaction. Any knowledge learned about him today cannot be used to his detriment by anyone in Summer nor can it be traded or given to those who aren’t bound by Summer Law.” I considered that for a moment. “Oh - and for the next twenty four hours Summer will give Harry Dresden their pledge of safe passage back to his home if he asks for it.”

 

Titania arched her brown but nodded once, her interlocutor speaking in exasperation. “As is our custom Warden. I tire of discussing terms already covered by Summer Law.”

 

I held in the urge to do the Snoopy Dance of joy as the Summer Queen effectively agreed to let me go once we finished talking, and then realized that anything else I discussed was just bonus at this point. Given that I’d already won, lets see if I could actually profit from this interaction. I smiled as a thought occurred to me. “I want you to help sneak women away from Moloch to places of safety.”

 

Titania actually titled her head at that. Her interlocutor seemed actually confused as he asked. “What?”

 

“It was something I never quite figured out how to do, not reliably anyway. I want to get at least some women away from his core worlds and to places where they can be happy.” I gestured to the body of Aurora. “I would have been able to save at least a few of them. I want your people to steal women who Moloch kidnapped.”

 

“How many?” Titania’s interlocutor replied in curiosity.

 

“As many as your people are willing to save.” I replied calmly. “As many as Aurora would have wanted you to save.”

 

“Done.” Titania’s interlocutor grinned malevolently. “It would have pleased her greatly to vexx Moloch.”

 

“I have a number of children in my care. They require a governess who will see to their education, love them, and protect them from harm. I worry that I will be unable to see to that role.” I gestured to the girl in front of me. “I want them to know that I loved them. That I cared for them as you cared for your child. From tomorrow onward I want the Sidhe lady best suited to care for them and protect them from my enemies to serve as my governess until all children in my care are old enough to care for themselves.”

 

“You ask much Warden.” Titania’s interlocutor growled.

 

“Grant that, and I will ask for no other terms.” The crowd of Sidhe erupted into excited whispers when I said that. The mad god of Nekheb had killed the Summer Lady, waltzed into the summer court, seen to his affairs and requested seemingly no protection against her retribution. It was the sort of thing that the courts would gossip about for centuries to come - and they didn’t even know the twist yet.

 

Titania blinked in apparent confusion. She considered the terms I’d spoken, trying to find the trap in them, but I knew she would find nothing that wasn’t already effectively custom of Summer Law or the reasonable requests of an honorable ruler. She could deny them to give herself a chance to find the trap but only if I gave her the chance to think rationally.

 

So I didn’t give her that chance. God forgive me. “A pity she had to die. She was almost pretty enough to join my clergy - but I doubt she would have made a worthy sacrifice.”

 

“Your terms are law - so mote it be!” Titania bellowed, not bothering to make use of the interlocutor as she pulled a glittering blade from her waist. The elegant fairy blade unfurled into a glittering leaf of fairy metal, singing through the air as she swung it towards my throat. It stopped a fraction of an inch from my flesh as she struggled to drive it into my flesh.

 

I stood up slowly, stretching my arms and legs as the Queen of Summer failed to stab me. I grinned at the collective fairy nobility as the infuriated Queen bellowed in apoplexy. The hottest fires of summer scorched the ground around me, a corona of power hotter than the sun - unable to touch me thanks to Summer Law. As the supernova of summer heat abated, I looked back to the horrified Summer Queen and calmly asked. “If you would be so kind, Queen Titania, I would like to go home to Nekheb.”

 

Titania’s eyes bulged as she tried to resist what she’d agreed to, her nature as the Queen of Summer waging war against a mother’s love.

 

Summer won.

 

It would probably have been kinder for me to just kill her along with her daughter. Titania’s eyes welled with tears as she opened a way through the Nevernever to Nekheb. Her nobles fled her sorrow, scattering in every direction as the living palace shook in sympathetic sorrow - an earthquake of utter grief as I looked at a clear view of the grounds in front of my palace. Before I walked through the way I pointed to Aurora’s corpse and said. “Titania - for what it is worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt her or you.”

 

Then I fled before I suffered the further wrath or sorrow of a grieving mother. I had just hurt a woman more deeply than any I could have ever hoped to hurt - but I could see no alternative that didn’t end in greater death. The oppressively hot air of Nekheb hit my face as I walked out into the courtyard in front of my palace, nearly tripping over a familiar leather sack as I did so. Apparently the Erlking had made good on his promise.

 

I felt the familiar presence of Traitor’s Bane in my mind as my foot hit the sand - blinking as shock as she gave me a report of what she considered to have been important over the past week. I groaned as she showed me the highlight reel. “Bob, when you get back - I’m going to kick your bony ass.”

 

I kneeled down, resisting the urge to be mad given that everything seemed to have turned out for the best as I fished through the leather bag for the glass bauble. It took me a while and I made sure to repeatedly assure Traitors Bane it wasn’t a threat before I tossed it into the air. She was likely to react poorly to the sudden appearance of a city in her airspace.

 

As the bauble soared into the sky I watched it expand into a massive snowflake, looming over the city of nekheb with it’s long spires and iron surfaces. I rarely noticed when Traitors Bane summoned a soldier to give me a status report on what had transpired over the past couple days. It was common practice for her to do so. Less so for her to send a human auxiliary than a Jaffa Officer, but it made sense given the complications of the past week on Nekheb.

 

I turned around as two figures entered the room, a smartly uniformed man and a woman who’d been stripped naked and bound with thick iron shackles. She was a fair haired woman with hard eyes and a proud face. Her discomfort at what appeared to be her forced nudity was nothing in comparison to my discomfort at the uniform her compatriot had elected to wear.

 

I was barely able to recognize what he was saying as words as my brain struggled to reconcile the fact that I was looking a fucking Nazi, SS uniform and all. “Mine Zaubergottkaiser, I am Dieter Hermann of the Schutzstaffel. I have brought General Winter to face your judgement. She is guilty of conspiring with the Tau’ri and allowing them to escape justice. I await your wisdom, oh noble Lord of Nekheb.”

 

I looked at the naked and beaten woman in utter shock for all of about ten seconds before punching him in the goddamn face. He went out like a light, apparently swastikas come complete with a glass jaw.

 

I looked down at the woman and asked, “Are you a Nazi?”

 

“Not any more.” She replied diplomatically.

 

“Good enough.”

 

Today had really been a remarkably strange day.


	45. Chapter 45

Mab found me not long after Amun descended on me with his legion of servants in tow. He was entirely unsympathetic to my need to get to Buyan in an expeditious manner, seemingly immune to my assertions that reaching Buyan was a time sensitive necessity. Apparently there was no such thing as a meeting too important to wait for a matching wardrobe.

 

Oh, and never mind that my head had become a flaming skull - there would be perfumed oils applied to my face.

 

I was still reasonably convinced that there was actual sorcery involved in some of the complex knots required to properly fasten the more ornate costumes of my office. As I struggled out of circle of servants before they could suggest the necessity of cloaks I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I extricated myself from Amun’s aggressive brand of care, and excused myself under the auspices of greeting a foreign head of state.

 

The Queen of Winter arched a brow at me as I approached her and asked in a tone of mild amusement. “Have you gone completely mad, Lord Warden?”

 

“Said pot to Kettle.” I replied, hefting the leather satchel with my weapons and armor in it over my shoulder. “I do believe that you were the one who decided to risk Paradox just to get me to take a meeting.”

 

“You agreed to take responsibility for every being aboard that nightmare of a city.” Mab intoned in a voice without emotion to it. “Do you have even the remotest idea why Koschei chose to stay on that monstrosity?”

 

“Honestly, no - but there were a bunch of people who would die if she decided to just destroy the city.” I shrugged. “It seemed like the best option.”

 

“Wizard - My mother isn’t allowed to destroy Buyan.” Queen Mab replied as thought I were thick. “The Builders had long standing treaties with Winter. We may not interfere with their strongholds.”

 

I blinked as that sunk in. “Oh - fuck.”

 

“And now you have inherited a problem that the Gate Builders themselves were unable to rid themselves.” Mab clucked her tongue. “It will likely kill you, assuming you survive my daughter’s interest.”

 

“She did seem… eager.” I replied diplomatically.

 

“She is the Winter Lady.” Mab spoke firmly. “She does not yet understand the gravity to the consequences of what she desires. I would advise you not indulge her.

“There was no indulging.” I affirmed vehemently as Mab opened a way. “Really, none at all.”

 

“Obviously given that you are whole, sane, and undamaged.” The Queen of Air and Darkness replied, her lip quirking up in an imitation of joy. “She has orders to return to Arctus Minora after she assists the four Russian Soldiers in returning to Moscow.”

 

“Four?” My ears perked up at that. “There were more of them in the throne room.”

 

“The others are still trapped within my Brother’s enchantment, along with the majority of the women you freed.” Mab replied. “The Archive and the Eater of Sin had enough power to break themselves free, but the rest are still frozen in battle.”

 

“For how long?” I groaned. “No - don’t tell me, Koschei was the kind of prick who would make that sort of enchantment with the intention of having it last forever unless you know the exact counterspell, isn’t he?”

 

“One might assume.” Mab’s lip quirked up in cruel amusement. “And one would be correct.”

 

“Don’t tell me - you know how to break it, but will only trade it to me for a price.” I sighed exasperatedly. “Lady, we’ve been through this song and dance before. Do you ever get tired of the steps?”

 

“It is my nature to make bargains as it is in yours to deny them.” Mab chuckled, a mirthless thing that sent shivers up my spine. “But given your penchant to deny Queens of Fairy - perhaps that is to be expected.”

 

“Ah - so you know about Titania?” I replied cautiously.

 

“I would not speak her name so incautiously, if I were you. She is unable to take action against you for what has transpired here today, but any insults offered from this point forward will be met with extreme prejudice.” Mab grinned wolfishly. “It was foolhardy in the extreme. Well done, Lord Warden.”

 

“Uh - sure.” I replied nervously. “I’d been hoping to ask Maeve to help me get back to the ship - would you mind?”

 

“After you robbed my sister of her vengeance for the death of my niece?” Mabs voice was practically a purr. It was the purr of a hunting cat, less about lust than about blood. “I would be happy to assist you, Lord Warden.”

 

There was a sudden rush of frost and we appeared in the throne room, between Ammit and the Archive as the two of them accepted tinned rations out of Kincaid’s pack. The merc was up in an instant as we appeared, pointing a gun at me as his eyes bugged in shock. “Holy fuck!”

 

“Kincaid, stand down.” Spoke the Archive firmly. “He is not your enemy.”

 

“Uh - kid, you want to tell me what the hell that thing is?” Kincaid intoned, lowering his gun slightly.

 

“The Lord Warden.” Ammit replied, her voice reverberating with the tones of the Goa’uld. “You’ve only been with him for several days.”

 

“When did he get face-fucked by Skeletor?” Kincaid growled, before looking at the Archive, horrified that he’d spoken like that around her. The little girl pulled a jar out of her backpack, holding it up till Kincaid rolled his eyes and shoved a dollar into it. “Kid, you know more swear words than I do.”

 

“And I know better than to use them in front of a child.” Ivy replied.

 

“Where are Ul’tak and the Jaffa?” I asked, looking at the tableau of women and ghouls frozen in time.

 

“Exploring the ship.” Ammit replied. “There is a lot of ground to cover.”

 

I nodded once and turned back to Mab. “Queen Mab, if it should so please you, I have a private matter to attend to with the Archive. If you would be so kind as to allow me privacy, I would take it as a kindness.”

 

“For you, Lord Warden?” Mab exaggerated her words in a way I knew was for the Archive’s benefit. “How can I deny the man who just embarrassed the entire Summer Court and has twisted Titania’s own law to protect himself. It would be my pleasure. What’s more, I will promise the Archive safe passage back to the Homeworld when she crosses the Nevernever. It’s the least I can do for the laughter you have brought me.”

 

And with a sudden gust of wind, she was gone, leaving me with the Archive and her Keeper.

 

“Kincaid has told me your price, Lord Warden.” The Archive intoned in clipped british English, her face far too serious for her young features. “I would know why you would ask for such knowledge. I am not eager to have a second Moloch in the galaxy - if it is your intention to re-create this foolishness, then I assure you that I will kill myself before I give you even a word of that ritual’s truth.”

 

“Slow down there hopalong.” I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender, dropping my bag on the ground. “I just need whatever you’re willing to give me that can help me figure out how to stop the ritual. Breaking the furnaces doesn’t seem to work, it just cuts off a single outlet of his ritual. But it just keeps on going.”

 

The Archive considered the matter before saying. “I can’t tell you anything about the ritual - not without breaking word I have given. But I can tell you what he’s using to power it without violating an existing agreement.”

 

“I’ll take what I can get.” I replied, pulling Clerent from my bag and fixing it to be belt of my formal robes.

 

“It is - ” The Archive broke mid sentence as her eyes fell on the blade strapped to my waist. “Is that Clarent?”

 

“Uh - yes?” I patted the blade’s hilt. “At least I think so.”

 

“Clarent allowed you to touch it?” Ivy asked as though the very concept of it terrified her. “Clarent?”

 

“Apparently.” I drummed my fingers on the blade’s hilt. “Shouldn’t I?”

 

“I honestly cannot tell if you are sincerely as ignorant as you pretend to be or the most terrifying creature I’ve met in years.” Ivy sighed in exasperation. “It isn’t relevant to your question and frankly that answer would put you in greater obligation to me than you are owed if I answered both questions. Do you wish to know about the blade or Moloch’s ritual?”

 

“The ritual.” I replied immediately.

 

“Wise.” Ivy nodded. “Tell me Warden. What do you know of fallen Angels?”

 

“I know there was some big hullabaloo in heaven that ended in a lot of Angels getting sent to down below to be the nastiest demons around. Lucifer and the like.” I chewed my lip. “And that 30 of them got to interact with the mortal world through coins.”

 

“And what of their Grace?” Ivy inquired, thumbing through her steno note-pad.

 

“Their what?” I asked.

 

“Their grace - the angelic power they cast aside. The power they rejected so that they could feed themselves on hellfire, what happened to their grace?” Ivy spoke slowly. “Grace cannot be destroyed, so what happened to it?”

 

“Uh - I guess they put it somewhere.” I replied slowly, catching on to her meaning. “Stars and Stones, are you telling me that Moloch found a freaking fallen Angel’s Grace and he’s been mucking around with it?”

 

“Anduriel’s to be precise.” Ivy shut her notepad and put it into her backpack. “It’s why Anduriel stopped warring with Lucifer for control of hell and consented to be returned to earth along with his most trusted soldiers.”

 

“But - but what could he possibly need something that powerful for?” An Angel’s Grace was the sort of thing you could charitably describe as the nuclear option. He had a supernatural “I win” button and was using it as the beginning of his ritual, not the end product.

 

“That, Warden, is a question for creatures more knowledgeable than I.” The Archive replied, cutting open a hole in the Nevernever and stepping through it. Kincaid followed her into it, offering me the briefest of nods before he did so.

 

I nodded back. The guy was a dick, but he’d gone through hell to protect the kid. I didn’t like him, but I respected him.

 

“Fuck me, Warden, the hell are we going to do about that?” Ammit whistled, speaking in a ghoulish imitation of Warden Nanami’s voice. My blood ran cold as it occurred to me that there was a thinking, breathing, living woman now condemned to serve as the Eater of Sin’s flesh puppet.

 

It had looked like Koschei had damaged her mind bady, perhaps even beyond repair. But if there was even a chance that I’d let a Warden live with the hell I’d nearly been condemned to when Heka possessed me, I’d never forgive myself. “Ammit - I need you to look into my eyes.”

 

“Uh - you sure about that, Warden?” Ammit replied cautiously. “You know that you don’t get to unsee that, right?”

 

“Look into my eyes.” I stared down into her glowing green pools as she stared up into my starry pits as I felt the tug of awareness that meant we were beginning a Soul Gaze. Eyes were the windows to the soul - quite literally. And I was going to get a front row seat to what had happened inside of Warden Nanami.

 

I walked in on a battlefield.

 

Warden Nanami was beset on all sides by every horrible creature I’d ever seen. Slavering vampires, cruel fairies, werewolves, dragons, demons, nightmares from beyond the outer gates… and apparently clowns? I guess Warden Nanami had an irrational fear of clowns to go along with her very rational fear of vampires. In fact there were an astonishing number of fictional monsters to go along with the real ones.

 

I was looking at everything that Warden Nanami had ever feared to look at, everything that had every scared her. And at the head of the army of nightmares was Koschei - looking just as ancient and crazy as when I’d first seen him. No - that wasn’t right, Koschei hadn’t been as big or as powerful as the dream creature that beset Warden Nanami. Which was probably why the Warden was on the ground, crying in the foetal position. Her weapons and tools had become ephemeral things - items slightly out of reach that would turn to vapor whenever she dared to grab for them. Her body was bruised and bloody from where the creatures had gotten her, obvious psychic damage causing glowing lacerations along her body that had bled through her Warden’s cloak.

 

She was clinging for dear life onto the one thing that stood between her and the monsters, a massive serpent that devoured any of the apparitions that came too close to her. It turned to me, beady eyes glowing brilliantly green as it tore into a vampire apparition with utter glee. Ammit was protecting her from the nightmares Koschei seemed to have induced in her mind.

 

Damn it - there wasn’t going to be an easy way to get Ammit out of Warden Nanami without driving the Warden irrevocably insane. Hell, for all I knew being possessed by the Goa’uld might be the only way to undo psychic damage that ingrained. Leonid Kravos had been an amateaur by comparison.

 

And then, it was done. I was left staring into the eyes of Ammit, Eater of Sin, after having let the demon who devoured the unworthy stare directly into my soul. I had given her a complete view of me, the image of who I was in totality without artifice or illusion to protect me. Ammit, without question, knew who I was.

 

And then Ammit, terror of the Red Court, slayer of nightmares, and warrior goddess of Nekheb, just about died of laughter.


	46. Chapter 46

The sun kissed my face as I leaned on the railing on the catwalk outside Buyan’s Throne Room. The cool air felt crisp against the patchwork skin that had grown back over my face, slowly but surely returning me to my former - if still inhuman - appearance. Now that the mantle wasn’t in overdrive focusing on immediate combat it had returned to its former role of repairing me in the background.

 

Only time would tell if it ever healed my face completely.

 

“You’re going to have to try to activate it eventually, you know.” Spoke the elegant man standing next to me as he pulled at his long strands of braided beard. “The people of Nekheb are afraid to leave their houses for fear of the ill omen that hangs above their heads.”

 

“I don’t have a great history with mystical thrones.” I replied, just enjoying the simple pleasure of watching the birds fly around Buyan. There were too many of them flying at this altitude, so at least some of them were spies for Summer, but they were no less pretty for that. “And I’m not the only option - not any more.”

 

“Ammit won’t go anywhere near the control throne that governs this city.” Enlil shuddered as though remembering something distinctly unpleasant. “She detests this place. Given the option she would have us fling it into the sun.”

 

“It’s my responsibility.” I shook my head, listening to Traitor’s Bane as it gave regular reports on the Jaffa moving around the City. The Genius Loci was unable to see through Buyan’s wards as it would have been able to see into a Goa’uld craft, but it was able to follow my soldiers as they systematically explored the city. “She doesn’t need to be here.”

 

“I suppose she already got all that she wanted out of the city.” Enlil replied, his voice somewhat muted by facing in the opposite direction. I didn’t need to look to know what he was looking at. The Brute Squad Wizards, frozen in time, were the only thing that could have stolen his focus to that degree. Enlil hadn’t said anything but I knew he lusted for a Hok’tar body. I wasn’t going to be able to delay that issue forever. He clicked his tongue twice then spoke in a voice of measured calm. “Lord Warden - there is an issue that we need to discuss. One that I cannot continue to delay given that I now know that it was inexperience rather than some sort of master plan that caused it.”

 

“Enlil - does it have to be now?” I really wasn’t ready for this conversation. I had a half assed plan at best for how to ethically get the Goa’uld hosts.

 

“I’m afraid so, Lord Warden.” Enlil replied apologetically. “Please understand that I truly do understand the aversion a man has to dealing with his wives, but there is really only so long that I can continue to provide excuses.”

 

“I don’t have a - “ I stopped as Enlil’s words caught up to me. “My what?”

 

“As the Lord of Nekheb you took over all of Heka’s property, including his wives. System Lord Law is very clear on this matter.” Enlil pulled out a data pad from his pocket and started flipping through files on it. “How you deal with your marriage to the Priestesses of Nekheb is really your business - ”

 

“I’m married to the Priestesses?” I managed not to yell, but only because I was too horrifed to raise my voice. “All of them?”

 

“Well, yes.” Enlil snorted. “I’ll admit that it’s a bit Greek for my taste but Heka was obsessively possessive of his clergy. Really it’s the Goa’uld wives who are of more interest to me. You have obligations to them as husband which must be fulfilled.”

 

I have never been so relieved for a Jaffa to signal potential danger across the communications net. “I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere, Enlil. The Jaffa need me.”

 

“You can’t put this off forever Warden!” Enlil bellowed as I sprinted away from him, following the path my Jaffa traveled. The were on the second spoke of the snowflake, the one on the opposite side from the library I’d crash-landed the chariot into. Ammit had been guiding my Jaffa in the safety protocols for exploring a Gate Builder facility. Given that they boiled down to “touch nothing” and “if you see anything of interest, call the Lord Warden” it had been slow going. Safe but slow, I’d had enough excitement for the week, thank you very much.

 

It took me about thirty minutes to reach the far spoke on foot, there was supposedly a teleportation system but I’d forbidden anyone the use of it until we’d verified that the ancient system still worked properly. I didn’t need anyone half-teleported and all the way dead. I was glad for the walk. Now that there wasn’t a monster trying to murder me in the city, I was actually enjoying the beauty of Buyan.

 

“Lord Warden.” The Ancient Jaffa from my personal guard saluted me. “You’re not going to believe what we found.”

 

“Honestly I’m just amazed you got a door open, Koschei’s final protocols have prevented us from getting into anything of importance.” I scratched at the patchy flesh over my face. It itched painfully and flaked off whenever I started using magic. “I didn’t think anything we had could even put a dent in those doors.”

 

“We didn’t try to put a dent in them.” The Jaffa replied, holding up a Goa’uld wrist computer. “But Shal’mok had the idea that if our computers were based off of Gate Builder tech, maybe they could talk with each other. He was able to talk the door into opening.”

 

“Thats… Hell’s Bells, that’s dangerous man. We still don’t know how the wards to this place work.” I shuddered at idea of everything that could have gone wrong. “I appreciate the initiative but don’t let anyone else try that until Bob gets back to have a look at the wards. I can’t make heads or tails of them.”

 

“Yes, Lord Warden.” Replied the Ancient Jaffa, bowing his head. “But I would strongly advise coming in to see what we’ve found.”

 

“What have you… oh… oh… crap.” The largest tower of the spoke was a single spiral path leading up and down as far as I cared to look, at least a half-kilometer upwards and downwards. The spiraling space was glowing blue with cool light shining out from cubicles housed in the wall, frozen figures in each cubicle. A glowing display in the language of the gate builders let me know that the creatures inside were, in fact, still alive.

 

I called them creatures because I had no other word to describe them. They weren’t any creature I’d ever seen before. I ran my fingers over the surface of the ice, whistling in surprise as I catalogued the features of what I was looking at. It was huge and muscular, with a bipedal body was unnervingly human. It was paler than even the vampires of the white court, scraggly white locks dangling down from an eyeless and mouthless carapace that consumed the creature’s face. It was wearing clothing that had little respect for symmetry or unity in their choice of material.

 

It was exactly like the frozen creature next to him. There were marginal enough differences in the clothing and armored face carapace to let me know that they weren’t completely identical but it was only through prolonged examination that I was able to tell. I lost count of how many identical creatures I wandered past before I finally found one that had some autonomy to it, a male figure who seemed to have been frozen in ice only under extreme duress. The creature’s eyes were frozen in a mad, hateful glare as it reached out with talon tipped fingers - vertical fanged mouths prominent on the palms of each hand.

 

“Are you kidding me?” I looked at the Ancient Jaffa, my heart sinking as my promise to Mother Winter echoed in my mind. I muttered it under my breath. “I bear responsibility for the welfare and survival of the people on Buyan. I would see to their safety and welfare.”

 

“I am not joking and I will support any responsibilities you have, milord” Yeesh, that Jaffa had good hearing.

 

“How many are there?” I shook my head as my mental bestiary came up with a fat goose egg, “What the hell are they?”

 

“We’re still getting a count, milord. We’ve identified five of the males and three females without carapace on their face.” The Ancient Jaffa tapped the front of the icy block with his staff, a shimmering forcefield blocking him from making contact with the icy surface. “And I don’t know what they are, but the Gate Builders damn well wanted these things to stay in stasis.”

 

“I want more soldiers on Buyan.” I walked out to the bridge looking out along the seemingly irregular landscaping in front of the entrance to the tower. The overlapping walls and bridges that seemed to go from nowhere to nowhere suddenly making sense. They’d designed as much cover as possible for someone defending against a mass escape. “And some gun emplacements along this path.”

 

I nearly jumped out of my skin as something popped out from behind a waist high wall. I raised my hand device reflexively, channeling power into the red crystal as a little girl popped out. She was a tiny thing - seven or eight years old. She froze as she stared into the red light, her eyes wide with terror at the sight of it.

 

Crap, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that there were victims of Koschei I hadn’t found yet. I lowered my hand, kneeling down as I said, “Come on kiddo. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

 

The little girl looked up at me her body contorted and twisting as it reflexively took on its true form. The child whispered fearfully through ghoul lips as it fell to the ground before me, utterly worshipful in her submission to me. “Great one! Thank you Great One. Thank you for this one’s life.”

 

I pinched the bridge of my nose as it occurred to me that Koschei wouldn’t have kept a tower full of dangerous prisoners without having some muscle to keep those prisoners in place. Muscle I had sworn to the Winter Lady I had taken responsibility for.

 

“Fuck.” I summed it up as elegantly as I knew how. “Ghouls… why did it have to be ghouls.”

 

And somewhere, in the distance, I was sure I could hear the cruel laughter of an iron toothed crone stirring a stewpot.


End file.
